


Dream of Me

by sadSadSong (The_Hellcat)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Angst, Bullying, Dream World, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Isaac and Liam are cousins for some reason, Isaac's dad is dead, M/M, Multi, PTSD, Past Abuse, Polyamory, high school shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-06 20:47:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18396071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Hellcat/pseuds/sadSadSong
Summary: Life at Beacon Hills has always been tough for Isaac, even after his dad was found dead over six months ago, but for once-- maybe dreams can come true. It's his senior year, and his longstanding crush has shown up in his film club and somehow a boy he has been dreaming about for over a year has appeared in his homeroom. Surely, none of this is real.





	1. We Intertwined

**Author's Note:**

> Here's to the first chapter. This story is inspired by the novel Dream Boy, by Mary Crockett and Madelyn Rosenberg. If you want to read more, please leave a kudos or a comment. I have several chapters already written and will be posted no matter what, which will probably post the first two or three then plan to update it on a weekly basis. So, for now, more dreams to come! 
> 
> Also, song of the chapter: ["We Intertwined"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T2pP8jKRu0&list=PL9e_xvtSIXg6uTU7u3qs9HT6Zyhp176QE) by the Hush Sound.

  


It was stormy, wind whipping in all directions. Rain cascaded down through the long branches above him, the trees swaying and lurching dramatically. Isaac couldn't tell where he was going, no path in sight and shadows at the corners of his vision distracting him with every step. Was something following him? A deep instinct, like a noticeable weight was pressing down on his back to tell him that it was getting closer.

He caught sight of another shadow moving, dark and shapeless. Yes, something was definitely there. The more he looked for them, the more he saw. Isaac quickened his pace, his arms hugging his chest to warm himself against the wind and rain. Only wearing a t-shirt and jeans, the cold quickly worked its way to the bone. Thunder boomed and clapped, lightning illuminating the sky for milliseconds at a time, but never fully reaching Isaac or the creatures following him.

Without a destination all he could do was look for cover of some kind, but all there seemed to be was sticker bushes and dense mud that was treacherous at every step. The canopy of branches had been thicker moments ago but now there were great empty patches of bare, open sky but there was no turning back now with the horde of living shadows were still following close behind him. In the distance he heard a long howl. For a moment his heart stopped, but then the howl was followed by several more until they blended together. Beasts that could fight back against the shadows somehow.

Inspiring confidence, Isaac headed in their direction. Hopping over logs and stumps and pushing through bushes, he continued until he was at the mouth of a large cave. He practically barreled inside, running right into a boy a few inches shorter than him, but managed to catch both of them from falling.

“Oh my god,” he said in relief, recognizing him immediately.

A fire crackled not far from the opening of the cave, lighting up Scott as he smiled, who also looked like he had braved the elements outside, dripping wet and half covered in mud. “There you are, this weather's crazy!”

He nodded, glancing back at the cave entrance. Would the creatures follow him inside?

“I'm glad I found you,” Isaac said, slowly allowing himself to feel relief. “Did you see what was out there?”

Scott shook his head. “Not really. I couldn’t really see much of anything. I only found this place on accident.” He smiled, like this was some big adventure the two of them had happily stumbled into.

Something about the easy grin reminded him that he was dreaming. It was a thought that came and left so quickly, like a little voice saying, _Only in your dreams Isaac Lahey,_ before flitting out of his mind again. Scott with his tan skin and warm eyes. Wearing just a shirt and jeans and dripping wet, he should've looked cold but he stood at ease, and held out a hand for Isaac to take.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked him. Isaac took his hand without a second thought.

“Yeah. Just a little spooked.”

“Come on, I found a way out of here,” Scott replied, leading them down deeper into the cave, past the fire and into the dark, turning down one of the first break away tunnels they came across.

The cavern tunnel was dim but not dark and didn't appear to have an end in sight as they walked through it, fingers interlaced. Isaac thought he heard barking from somewhere in the distance, echoing off the rounded stone walls. He looked at Scott who had wandered off a short distance ahead, pointing out long shapes of stone and crystal jutting out from both the ceiling and ground.

“What are these called—stalakmites?” he asked, “Stalagtites?”

“Probably, I have no clue.”

He saw Scott pick up a piece of stone shining with chunks of crystal and put it into his pocket. “Souvenir.”

“I missed you,” Isaac said, picking up his own piece of rock small but reflective.

“I missed you too,” Scott said, his voice loud enough to echo off the walls. He closed the distance between them again, this time closing his arms around Isaac in an embrace.

Isaac hugged him back, closing his eyes, taking in the scent of Scott's hair and squeezing the little rock tightly in his palm. When he opened his eyes they were in a sunny forest clearing. He could hear a river in the distance and the trees were taller than any others he'd seen before. Moss seemed to cover every surface it possibly could. There were indents in the dirt, large canine prints.

“Hey, I know this place...” From where he didn't know, but it was definitely familiar.

“You've been here before?” Scott asked sounding genuinely surprised.

“I think so, yeah.” An eruption of howls echoed in the distance, and that too seemed somehow familiar. Scott looked up and behind them, in the direction of the howling. He seemed startled. Isaac squeezed his hand, pulling his attention back to him.

“It's alright, we're safe,” Isaac said, leaning in close to him to kiss him behind the ear.

“If you're sure,” he murmured, lips turned in a mischievous smile.

“Very sure.” Scott pushed him down into the soft grass, and watched shamelessly as he pulled off his t-shirt in one quick motion.

“Isaac...”

“Huh?” That was weird, Scott’s lips were moving, but it wasn't his voice coming through.

“Isaac... wake up.”

  


Isaac jerked awake, looking around the classroom in a startled manner. Erica to his left was looking at him with sympathy and he could hear snickers erupting throughout the whole back row. He was lucky that the Mr. Allen didn't really pay attention to stuff like this, he was too busy analyzing the Great Gatsby to a class that was only half paying attention.

“You were talking in your sleep...” Erica whispered to him. There were more snickers and giggling.

“Aw, fuck,” he said, wishing he could hide completely inside his oversized hoodie. “What did I say?”

She was about to answer when the teacher looked away from the chalkboard, seeming to realize that the class was chattering amongst themselves. And probably talking about Isaac and the fact that he had drooled a river down his desk.

It was nice of Erica to wake him up but that was definitely a dream he would've liked to go on much longer. And dreaming was the only place he ever saw Scott. Was it weird that he had a reoccurring dream character? Probably, but it was a million times better than any of the reoccurring nightmares he’s had before, and for the past few weeks he’d seen him in his dreams every single night. Apparently his subconscious could create entire characters for him to visit on a nightly basis, but whatever, it was the only way he would even be with a boy. His life was complicated enough as it was right now, he didn't want to add “queer” to the reasons people could mess with him. At least the fact that he also liked girls made pretending to be straight that much easier.

Boyd sat to his right, his expression unreadable and his attention was on whatever Mr. Allen was writing on the board. He might not’ve even noticed he had been asleep at all, or had simply pretended not to notice. Isaac had anxious tendencies but Boyd’s pensiveness and shyness were measures above him, so Boyd’s method of dealing with uncertainty was often to pretend certain inconveniences didn’t exist. A questionable practice, but Boyd was also much more concerned with the whole learning and achieving aspect of high school life, which was at least nice when it meant that he was very well prepared to help Isaac with last minute cramming before a test.

The three of them sat together at lunch at a round table near one of the trash cans. It was always just the three of them, unless Erica wasn't feeling well due to her medication or had a doctor's appointment. And of course Isaac would skip. In the off chance the both of them weren't there, Boyd would just stow himself away in the library for lunch period. None of them had any other friends; at worst they were derided and at best they were ignored. No one even seemed to make eye contact with them as they walked over to throw out trash, their eyes fixed on the trash can and past them.

By the time Isaac arrived with his slice of pizza, Boyd and Erica were already there.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” teased Erica.

“Ugh, shut up,” he said. “Jeez, I didn't say anything stupid, did I?”

Boyd raised his eyebrows in a look that was so obviously judgmental.

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

Erica just laughed. “You were mostly muttering. I couldn't make out anything, really...”

“But what could you make out?” he demanded. The recent dream could've meant some seriously embarrassing sleep talking.

“Look, I don't think anyone else really heard so I think you're good,” she said, trying to downplay the matter.

“What did I say?” He had to know what people would be taunting him with now.

“Just tell him or he won't shut up for the rest of the day,” Boyd said. He wore a small smile as he looked between Erica and Isaac.

Isaac nodded, looking pointedly at her. “He's right. So, tell me.”

“Fine, fine. You said something like,” she said and paused, trying not to laugh, “'You're beautiful.' That part was pretty clear. And something about skin? Someone was having a good dream.”

“Oh. My. God. Fuck my life.” Everyone in their class did not need to know when he was having sexy dreams.

“Let me guess, was it Allison?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

Right. His real life crush. Both Boyd and Erica knew all about his unrequited crush on her since they had been lab partners in chemistry last year for the whole first semester. They had worked well together on labs and she had been both pretty cool and not a jerk which turned out to be pretty rare in a high school student. In that same semester he had managed to catch his sleeve on fire twice but when she teased him about it it wasn't in a mean way. Lab partners were randomized and second semester he got put with Greenburg and she was put with Jackson. They hadn't really spoken since.

“No!” he blurted out, “It wasn't her. I didn't say her name, did I?”

“No. But it's not exactly hard to guess with you, is it?”

“If it wasn't her, then who?” Boyd asked.

Isaac frowned. He should've just said that he'd been dreaming about Allison. It would be hella embarrassing bringing up a long standing dream crush. Especially since they didn't know he was into boys.

“No one in particular...”

Erica snickered. “Yeah, sure. I'll pretend like I believe you.”

Isaac decided to not dig his hole any deeper and let the subject drop there. It was only the second week of school but he already couldn't wait for it to be over. He knew the two of them felt the same when Erica had declared that she had terminal senioritis on the second day. She had been joking, but Boyd had looked panicked nonetheless. He wouldn't have either of them mess up his plans of having them all attend the same college.

“It looks like Liam's doing well here,” Erica said, glancing over his shoulder.

Isaac shrugged. “I guess.”

Across the cafeteria Isaac saw his cousin sitting with a group of people, mostly boys from the lacrosse team by the looks of it. It had taken him less than two weeks for Liam to feel more at home at Beacon Hills than Isaac did in his three years. He was a sophomore transfer from his previous private school, having gotten kicked out for vandalizing his old lacrosse coach's car. His parents tried to keep the whole thing quiet, but pretty much everyone at the private school knew so it was only a matter of time before Beacon Hills would be hearing about it too.

“He's trying out for lacrosse, then? Is he even allowed to?” Erica continued.

“I'm pretty sure. Tryouts are tomorrow or today or something. I'm sure he'd be flipping a shit if he wasn't allowed to at least try out.” And if he's trying out that means he'll be on the team. He had been one of the star players at the private school. Isaac had never been much of a sports person. It wasn’t that he was in bad shape or completely uncoordinated, it was the whole _team_ part.

“I saw Lydia Martin talking with him today, she almost looked like she was going to eat him,” Erica said, sounding amused.

Isaac rolled his eyes. If Lydia was speaking with his cousin that meant he was officially approved by the in crowd. At least for now.

“Hey, if he gets invited to one of her parties we should totally crash it.”

Boyd looked at her skeptically.

“We should go to at least one stupid party before senior year is over. Just to see how stupid it is,” she said. Isaac sensed there was more than that, though. Apart of her was still envious of popular crowd, even if she knew they were filled with superficiality and empty friendships. Perhaps she would have been one of them if she wasn't epileptic.

Boyd made a face. “Why would we go if we know if it's going to be terrible?”

“Experience,” she said, not missing a beat. “And we should get drunk at least once before going to college.”

Isaac shrugged. “I can get behind that.” He also imagined that Allison would be there, since her and Lydia were practically connected at the hip.

“We can do that with just the three of us,” Boyd said.

“That's not the same and you know it,” she said.

They went back and forth like this until lunch period ended, and Isaac and Erica walked together to history and Boyd went alone to AP Chemistry. They sat at the back of the classroom again, where Isaac had an amazing view of the back of Allison's head. Most of the period he spent daydreaming a scenario in which he could get himself to talk to her. Erica passed the time with halfway taking notes and mostly doodling.

When the final school bell rang the three of them met up again in Mr. Yukimura's classroom for film appreciation club. He was their advisor and was either busy grading assignments or wasn't even in the room to care about what they were doing. They mostly just talked and watched movies, and of course, they were the only three members.

There had been other people in it last year but four had graduated and one now had conflicting times with debate club. Kira Yukimura would wander in ever so rarely, but it was probably mostly because her dad was there and she didn't want to walk home. Isaac was sure no one else wanted to be associated with the club if the only regular members were also the three of the biggest losers at the school. And that was a problem.

“You guys still haven't turned in your club renewal form,” Mr. Yukimura reminded them. “The deadline's the beginning of October.”

“Right,” Isaac said with half a grimace. He had no clue how they would find the signatures necessary to meet minimum club requirement. They only needed ten people, and they didn't even have to show up for the rest of the year, just once or twice.

In large, messy letters he wrote across the whiteboard: 'film appreciation club: new members? this week's movie?'. He had somehow been made president of this small club since he had the worst grades out of the three of them and Boyd said that it would help on his college applications. Boyd himself was treasurer and Erica was VP but the titles really didn't mean much. Isaac acted like it did, if only to have an excuse to overrule Erica in arguments.

“Sooooo,” he said, “Any brilliant ideas? Because by this point I'm just thinking of bribing some people.”

“I'm still here, Isaac,” Mr. Yukimura reminded him, glancing up from a stack of papers.

“Yeah, joking. But really.”

“There's Kira,” Boyd said.

“We'd still need _six_ more people,” he said, like it was really sixty.

“Hey, we could try to sabotage Speech and Debate,” Erica suggested. “That could get us at least one member, and Jessica could get some of her disenfranchised debaters to come over here.”

“Still here, Ms. Reyes,” Yukimura interjected again.

“Don't worry, we can be very secretive. It won't ever be traced back to you,” she said confidently.

“It better not,” he said absently, marking an assignment in red.

“Seriously, though,” Isaac said, “what are we going to do?”

Erica muttered something about how, 'she was being serious' and Boyd said, “We could make posters?”

“Lame. But I guess that's something,” Isaac said, and scribbled that on the board.

“Why don't you ask Liam? Him and a couple of his friends,” Erica suggested.

“Because convincing him would be hard enough, and anyways I don't want him here.”

“It'd just be for a few meetings.”

Isaac frowned. There was always the very slight chance that someone might actually decide to stick around and he didn't want someone terrible mucking up one of the few stress free things in his life.

“You could ask Allison to join,” she teased.

“Ha. Yeah, right. And you can ask Danny,” he countered. He was her unobtainable high school crush, although she wasn't nearly as pathetic about it as Isaac was for Allison.

Anger flashed on her face for a moment but she reeled herself in.

“Yeah, and Boyd can ask... Who _do_ you like, Boyd?” she asked, looking over at him.

Boyd let his mouth hang open but said nothing.

“Boyd's saving his sexual charm for the college ladies,” Isaac said with a smirk.

“Oh, is he?” Erica said, laughing a bit as Boyd let out a deep sigh.

“Yeah, I mean, when was the last time you saw him shirtless?”

“You guys are dumb,” Boyd said, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“No, no, Boyd take off your shirt, you needa show Erica what she's missing out on,” Isaac continued.

Boyd quickly gathered up his things. “You know what? I don't need this from you guys too,” he said, his voice hot with anger. Before Erica or Isaac could react Boyd had stormed out.

A silent thirty seconds passed in the classroom; the only sound being Mr. Yukimura’s pen striking against paper.

“You think we went too far?” Erica asked finally.

“He's being a sensitive idiot, he knows we were just kidding,” Isaac said, though he still felt guilty.

“Yeah, well, he's our sensitive idiot. I'll go talk with him,” she said, and just as quickly she sped after him.

Isaac frowned, looking back at the whiteboard and what he had written on it. “I guess I'll choose this week's movie, then.”

Mr. Yukimura remained silent as Isaac wrote 'Teen Wolf' on the board then erased it along with everything else. He was just about to leave when the classroom door opened.

“Hey,” Kira said, with a small wave.

“Hey,” he replied, disappointed his friends hadn't returned.

“No movie today?” she asked. Maybe she came to their meetings more than he had realized.

“Um, no. On Thursday, though.”

“Oh, okay,” she said casually. She shuffled her feet a bit awkwardly and he realized they were both just standing there not saying anything.

“Oh, right. Do you wanna sign our club's registration form?” he asked, fumbling to find the paper in his backpack. “It doesn't mean anything, we just need members to get recognized as a club or whatever,” he added quickly.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, biting her bottom lip. She signed it quickly and even added her email and phone number in the available spots on the sign-up sheet. “Good, uh, luck with that, then,” she said quickly and left him. He gave a heavy sigh.

“You sure know how to clear a room,” Mr. Yukimura said with a bit of a smirk.

Unlike the three before him, he took his sweet time gathering his things together and basically meandering out of the classroom, mumbling a 'goodbye' to Mr. Yukimura. On the average day he either walked to school or rode an old rusted bike, and today he woke up late so he hurried along on the terrible bike. The hallways were basically empty and he didn't know whether it made him relieved or sad. Down the next corner was the way to the boy's locker room and that was where he saw Lydia Martin and Jackson Whittemore share a very long kiss. And another kiss, and now he was pressing her against the wall.

“I know, disgusting, right?” a voice said to his right and he nearly jumped out of his shoes. It was Allison.

He glanced back over at the two of them entangled with each other. It was all really terrible to watch but inside he was just incredibly jealous of anyone who could do that with someone.

“Yeah, what crawled up their asses?” he replied, instantly wanting to smack himself. This was his only chance to try to talk with her again. Maybe possibly get her number. Or, just to say 'talk to you later' and have it seem more as a promise than anything.

“They got back together again.”

“Ah,” he said in response. It was common knowledge at Beacon High that Jackson and Lydia were serially monogamous with each other.

An awkward few seconds passed where both him and Allison were silent and Jackson and Lydia at the end of the hallway were still going at it, without thinking about it Isaac just walked forward, away from the two of them and to his surprise Allison walked with him.

“How's working with Greenburg?” she asked.

Huh? Oh right, he was the replacement lab partner.

“Basically terrible. He's no genius, that one.”

She smiled, that dimpled smile that could light up a room. “Well, you're one to talk.”

“I'm not that bad,” he argued.

“I recall you setting yourself on fire. You know, twice?”

He gave a small shrug. “Well, how else was I supposed to figure out if I was a Targaryen or not?” He smiled. The memory of it had made him feel embarrassed for so long, but with her easy smile it really did seem funny now.

“Riiiiiight. Do you have your film club today?” she asked.

“What? You know about that?”

She nodded. “Mm hm, you told me about it last year in class.”

“Oh, right. It ended early today.” Suddenly Erica's taunt came to mind. _Why don't you ask Allison to join?_

Well, why not? She was right there. But oh god, she was right there.

“Lydia is making a long farewell with Jackson before he has practice. And here I am still waiting with her, because she said she would help me before the calc quiz tomorrow.”

He wanted to say that he could help her but he was barely going to pass pre-calc as it was. Instead, he just nodded.

“That sucks, but I guess you're used to this terrible PDA, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Nothing's worse than being a third wheel.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said, realizing he was thinking of Boyd and Erica as the couple he was third wheeling. They weren't dating, sure, but they were still very close.

“Usually Danny's around, so I'm not suffering alone. He's already in the locker room, though.”

Isaac nodded absently, his head too full of thoughts to articulate any of them coherently. He had to just spit it out and get it over with.

“So, um, I gotta go, but you should come to film appreciation club sometime, maybe?” All his words came out haltingly and nervous. He felt a sudden need to escape. “I'll see you around,” he said, and turned the corner in a nervous rush before she even had a chance to answer.

“Alright, see ya!” she called after him.

He turned around and smiled, his face flushed and his heart beating like a bass drum. She smiled too, looking a bit confused, but she gave him a little wave in response. By the time he made it outside to the bike racks he wanted to hit himself. He was such an idiot. Why was he such a creepy awkward mess?

But he had just had a casual conversation with her which hadn't happened in forever. She maybe even didn't think he was the human personification of trash. She was in all likelihood, probably just being nice, but she seemed pretty genuine. He unlocked his bike and made his way home, hoping all of the embarrassment would wear off by then.

Neither his aunt nor uncle were home, and of course Liam was still at lacrosse try-outs. It didn't really matter, he'd be holed up in his room for the next few hours until dinner anyways. He grabbed a bowl of chips and shut his door behind him. It had been about a year since he moved in with them, after his dad had died last year. It was by far much nicer living here, though he could sort of tell that his aunt and uncle didn't know how to deal with him, even after him being here this long. Him and Liam had gotten a bit closer, though. Mostly in regards to playing video games together every so often and Liam giving him a ride to the mall in his car.

His room was messy in the superficial sense. The floor was littered with clothes and old school papers. He dropped his backpack on the floor and immediately started up his laptop and switched his hole-ridden and frayed jeans for some comfy sweatpants. As he slid his pants off, he felt something solid in his right pocket. It was a small piece of crystal rock. What the hell? He couldn’t fathom how that had found its way into his pocket, wracking his mind for some sort of answer. His thumb slid over the surface of the rock, feeling familiar as it did so, but still drew a blank. He set it on his bedside and didn’t think much more of it for the rest of the night.

When he wasn't sucking at video games or clicking through reddit, he was making fan music videos to movies and tv shows. Currently, he was in the middle of putting together a Pacific Rim compilation to a Beyonce song. He ate his dinner quickly and deflected most questions about school and went back up to his room. Hours drained away on the internet before he collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep.

It usually took him a half an hour or more to fall asleep, but today was easier, he drifted off almost instantly. The world he awoke to was lit like it was perpetually sunset, and everything was washed in colors of deep orange and magenta. He soon found himself in a restaurant with huge windows, showcasing hundreds of fluttering birds. There definitely hadn’t been any birds outside, but that was something to worry about later, now he was being seated by a hostess at a dark booth with a front row seat to the avians out the window. Someone was already seated there, a certain dream boy who was looking thoughtfully at the menu.

“Did you know that you can order things gravity-free here?” Scott asked him.

He shook his head, not quite sure what that meant except that an upside-down cake would be upright for once. There was a pair of peacocks outside their window, as well as a beautiful blackbird that seemed to change colors every time he looked away and back again.

“I’m glad we finally made it here, I love places like this.”

Isaac glanced around thoughtfully. “Places like what?”

“Where we can enjoy ourselves together. Almost like we’re real people.”

“Are you saying I’m not a real person?” Everything felt as real as it normally did, even if there were more feathers here than he would usually find in a nice restaurant, and he would find himself in a restaurant like this in the first place.

“I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry. I’m just glad we’re together and trying new things is what I meant.”

Isaac nodded, because what else could he have meant? And a waiter came and took their orders, he couldn’t remember quite what it was he ordered but it was definitely savory as well as gravity-free. They dined and laughed, and even kicked each other playfully from underneath the table. When the check came, neither were there, instead running side by side down the street laughing ferociously.

“I’m glad you made it tonight. Though, I can’t say I wasn’t hoping you’d find her, too,” Scott said at some point when their sprint had slowed down to a stroll.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” He meant it truthfully, first thinking Scott was talking about Erica. He wouldn’t need to find her here.

“Well, I’m just saying...” Scott said, sounding bashful. He then began to mutter something about his school, and something about film appreciation club. There were near the edge of the city now, crossing a bridge to a soft green forest.

“Saying what?” Isaac asked at last.

“That if you wanted to see Allison, that I’d be okay with that. I mean, she is more real than me, after all.”

He could almost feel himself jump out of his skin. His cheeks flushing under the orange tint of a sky at dusk. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. I barely even know her.” When he saw Scott’s face looking at him imploringly, he continued. “And even if I did like her like that, there’s no way she’d ever want anything to do with me.”

At this, Scott reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tight. “Hey, come on. Do you think I’m the only one that could like you?”

Isaac began to shake his head, but stopped. “I mean...”

“Are you saying that I have bad taste?”

He laughed. “Well, maybe.”

“Well, I think that I’m the luckiest guy here. And that Allison would feel the same way. Er-well, she’d feel like the luckiest girl? Whatever, you know what I’m saying.”

“Shut up. I don’t care about her.”

“Are you sure about that?” a voice asked. At first he had thought it was Scott who was talking, but that wasn't right. He turned to see Allison Argent standing there, looking at the two of them, eyebrows raised playfully. For some reason she was dressed in some old Greek clothing, bow and quiver slung over her back and robes short for ease of movement.

Now this was a dream.

With a million things currently running through his head, it was a miracle he didn’t blurt out something stupid.

“What are you doing here?” he asked at last.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, removing her bow and quiver and dropping them on the grassy ground at their feet.

He felt a warm kiss on his lower neck, it was Scott, rubbing his hand on his shoulder blade. “Don't act so surprised. Anything can happen in dreams,” Scott murmured.

“Right…” Isaac answered, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

He had forgotten he was dreaming. At least most of him. In the back of his mind the thought was always there. The slight itch that nothing was real. Did he get that feeling when he was awake too? But anyways, it didn't matter right now. What Scott said was true: anything could happen in dreams, and that was honestly the only way he'd be in this situation. As if anyone like Allison or Scott would be even remotely interested in him in the waking world. At least right now that didn’t matter; this could be his version of reality. He leaned into the soft kisses.

It was night now, the shift happened relatively gradually in his peripheral vision. It had been a slower shift, not a weird, discontinuous dream skip that happened so often. The light of the moon reflected brightly off Allison’s eyes.

She approached with hesitation, her hand brushing against Scott’s copper shoulder. Scott pulled himself away from Isaac, meeting her eyes lethargically, and his hands still keeping contact with Isaac’s shoulder and arm. Isaac then met her eyes and she bit her lip before reaching forward to pull his head down--and sweetly, she kissed him.

Now he felt his whole body heat up. His face had already turned pink when Scott had started, now he didn't know what to do with himself. It was a short kiss, she had pulled away before it could go any further. It was so much stranger when it was someone he knew from real life.

 _Don't worry so much, it's just a dream after all,_ he found himself thinking.

“God, I hope I remember this tomorrow,” he blurted out.

Allison smiled widely at that, but now he was too aware of everything to not be terrified of doing more with her. So instead he turned to his left, looking into Scott's dark eyes, for familiarity and perhaps comfort. Scott was the one who'd been his dream time visitor for just about a year now. He realized now, for all the romantic attachment he had for him, and for how much they held hands and followed each other through wild and random dream plots they'd never actually done anything sexual. Well, he wasn't going to wait any longer for that. Isaac smirked and leaned in to Scott, kissing him on the lips, eager to drink him in. Scott actually seemed surprised by the step forward, but pulled him closer and entwined his fingers in Isaac's curls.

Isaac didn't generally find himself flying or even falling in his dreams. And he knew he wasn't right now either, but it sure felt like it. His heart could've flown straight out of his chest, light and ecstatic. Just for a moment he pulled away to catch his breath, resting his forehead against Scott's. He felt warm hands--Scott’s and Allison’s-- glide over his back and shoulders and opened his eyes, but instead of seeing them he jerked awake.

  
  



	2. Sleeping In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song of the chapter, ["Sleeping In"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3eb5g9NH30&list=PL9e_xvtSIXg6uTU7u3qs9HT6Zyhp176QE&index=3&t=0s) by the Postal Service. :)

Isaac glared at his alarm clock and slammed down the snooze. Of course, he always woke up just at the best part of his dreams but that abrupt departure had been especially cruel. He turned over in bed, closing his eyes and willing himself to return to that forest. Return to those warm arms.

The alarm went off fifteen minutes later, and he hadn't even come close to falling back to sleep. He decided to give up and actually pull himself out of bed but instead of starting his morning routine he turned on his laptop and opened a blank word document, typing out every detail of the dream he could remember. He didn't want to forget half of it before noon. No, he wanted to be able to replay this in his head at will.

When he glanced at the digital clock he decided no, he didn't have enough time to jerk off before heading to school. He read through what he wrote about the dream one more time before rushing through his morning routine. Liam had already left for school, so Isaac grabbed a bag of poptarts before hopping on his bike.

He had some sort of energy in him that he realized hadn't been present yesterday or the day before, or perhaps any day in a long time. It was just a dream, but the warm feeling of it, the dancing images that still flashed vividly in his mind, those were like a blip of light in his dull life. Maybe today would be a good day for once. The next film club meeting wasn't until tomorrow but maybe Allison would show up. Maybe he could even learn to talk to her without falling into a mental frenzy.

Isaac smiled as he saw the school a few blocks away from him; it looked like he wasn't even going to be late. He pedaled a little bit harder, and then suddenly he was flying.

It was a very confusing moment, being air born then quite abruptly landing again on the cement. He shot up to his feet without much thought going through his mind except trying to absorb the details from around him. A ringing in his ears, his bike looking a bit crumpled several feet behind him, and a shiny car with Jackson Whittemore looking out the driver side window. He looked almost worried for half a second.

“Oh, it's just you. Look where you're going next time,” he said with a sneer. He seemed much more concerned for his car than the fact that blood was pouring out of Isaac's nose.

His throat was all dry and constricted and it felt like half the skin on his arm got scraped off. Not to mention it felt like he had bitten a hole straight through his tongue. Feeling hazy and righteously furious, he spat some of the blood that had pooled in his mouth onto the wheel of the car. His eyes met with Jackson's in a dead stare, it would've been pathetic if not for the wildness behind it. It said, _you can't break what's already been broken_.

“Fuck off, Lahey,” Jackson said, having lost the staring contest even from behind his mirrored sunglasses. And with that he turned back toward the road and drove off.

Isaac spat out another mixture of blood and phlegm, this time on the pavement. Feeling a wave of lightheadedness and overall pain, he laid back on a patch of nearby grass.

“Fuck.”

As if apart of his old routine, he took a physical check of himself. A huge scrape down his arm, throbbing head, and it sort of hurt to move his chest. Probably a bruised rib. At least nothing felt broken. His tongue was still bleeding but mouth injuries weren’t anything to be concerned about unless a tooth was missing. He'd received worse. This was just a terrible reminder that his body was made to get battered. If anything, he was more concerned for his t-shirt and bike.

Eventually, he dragged himself up and went to inspect his bike. A loose chain, and the handlebars were a bit crooked now. Not as bad as he thought, although he refrained from riding it the rest of the way to school.

He cleaned himself off in the bathroom before arriving to first period. He flipped his shirt inside out, but had no way of hiding his bloody-raw arm. Perhaps he should actually get a bandage from the school nurse this time. Instead he just borrowed a hoodie from Boyd's locker, having known his combination since the first day of school.

The teacher sent him a disapproving look as he rushed in, slouching forward as if to minimize himself and sat down behind Erica. She seemed to immediately catch on that something was off.

“Isn't that Boyd's?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged, unsure how to conveniently explain what happened. So he didn't. It was simple enough, Jackson fucking Whittemore hit him with his shitty car. It just was another pathetic event of his life that he didn't want to get into at the moment.

“I'll tell you later.”

She frowned and lowered her voice. “Are you alright? You don't... look so well.”

He sure didn't feel well either. His body ached and a headache had just blossomed at the corner of his skull. Nausea never did much for his complexion either. Normally by this point she'd ask him in discreet words if it had been his dad, but that possibility had been ruled out. For all she knew it could have just been the flu.

“Flu,” he blurted out, leaning over onto the hardwood of the desk's surface.

She cringed in return, seeming to believe him. “Why didn't you stay at home, then?”

He shrugged, unable to give a better answer.

“Go home, Lahey. Save yourself and us from catching it. Oh man, I hope it's not a stomach flu, I don't wanna throw up.”

“I don't need to go home,” He argued back, his voice raising in volume as it always did when he he was being defensive.

She let out a huff of air. “I don't get it. Are you trying to prove something right now? You have an actual excuse to get out of class. And both your aunt and uncle work so you'd have the place to yourself.”

He stared off in a distracted fog, her last comment left a bad feeling in his gut. Maybe because going home early in the past meant his dad would get pissed for him making excuses and being a pussy.

“Isaac?” she said after a moment of him answering with nothing but silence.

“Erica,” said the teacher, irritated from behind her desk, “Whatever you're saying to Isaac must be important to interrupt your classmates from working.”

Isaac frowned, at most half of the kids in the classroom were working on school work and most of them were probably copying answers from friends who had actually done the work the night before.

“Yeah, actually,” she said, rising to the challenge. “He's obviously really sick and should be resting at home but instead he's being an idiot.”

Isaac rolled his eyes and attempted to sit further back in his seat. Eyes on him and then on the teacher, waiting for her response. It was just then that he also noticed that there were a few spots on the hoodie sleeve where blood was seeping through, quickly and quite awkwardly he crossed his arms.

“Is this true?” the teacher asked, scrutinizing him.

He paused for a moment too long. “Maybe.”

It was her turn to now sigh. “Please take your things and go visit the nurse. Next time stay home.”

He flicked Erica in the back of her head as he stood. Going home really wasn't a bad thing but he hated all this extra attention. As he got up he tried to not make eye contact with the teacher or anyone else even the person who had just walked into the classroom. Someone actually later than himself. After a few steps he was struck by a wave of nausea and dizziness and stumbled right into the late student.

“Oh man, I'm sorry,” the boy said, as if he was the one who had just knocked himself into him. And Isaac's eyes must've been playing tricks on him; maybe Jackson had hit him harder than he thought. “Are you okay?”

Isaac reluctantly made eye contact with him and felt another wave of dizziness. He knew those eyes. “Y-yeah, I was-- nurse's...” His stomach turned; he had to run. He almost tripped over himself running out into the hallway.

He leaned against the lockers, sinking lower as he felt the nausea build.

“Isaac, what the fuck!” It was Erica, she had darted after him. He didn't know whether to be relieved or incredibly embarrassed. She helped steady him by wrapping an arm around his waist and lowering herself under his shoulder.

“Who was that?” he croaked.

“Who? That guy? What-- did he trip you or something?” she asked and slowly helped walk him down the hallway towards the school nurse.

“What? No, he just, did he seem...” Like he had just jumped out of one of his dreams? He stopped abruptly to turn to the side and vomit all over the linoleum tile.

“Aw shit,” she said, cringing and giving Isaac a few pats on the back.

In the course of the next twenty minutes he was taken to the nurse's office, diagnosed with a concussion (big surprise), and his aunt arrived at the school to pick him up. Eventually he had taken off Boyd's hoodie to showcase to them his bloody arm. And yeah, they all wanted to know what the hell had happened to him. Especially Erica, who had been texting Boyd about the entire incident.

“I was riding my bike to school and Jackson hit me in his stupid Porsche.” He sat on a thin bed as he spoke, his eyes trained down at his feet.

“Is he someone you know?” his aunt asked. She had the confident sort of voice that wanted some sort of justice. Isaac couldn't tell if she actually cared about him, but he could appreciate that she was standing up for him.

“Sorta.”

“He's basically the school's biggest asshole. Probably thought it was funny,” Erica said. She'd probably be fine with Jackson getting expelled but Isaac did not like the sound of it. Everyone would know it was his fault. Or maybe he was more concerned with the entire school finding out Isaac was someone else's punching bag.

“He didn't know, he probably thought I was fine. I got up right away.” He felt sick defending the guy but he did immediately stand up afterwards and spat at him like it would just be a couple of bruises. Most people would lie there for a moment and slowly get up because pain usually slowed someone down, while he had been still in survival mode and all too ready to jump back up.

Erica glared at him. “Why are you standing up for him?”

He shrugged and looked at his feet.

“Whether he knew it or not, it's no reason he should get away with such reckless driving,” said his aunt. The nurse looked away, trying not to be involved beyond Isaac's injuries while the vice principal heaved a sigh.

“We'll get a hold of Jackson's parents,” the vice principal said, nodding she gave a strained nod before leaving them with the nurse.

“Isaac, do you often have trouble with this boy?” his aunt asked.

“Not really. It's not like we're friends or anything, though.” Erica managed to hold her tongue on this topic but shot Isaac another look.

The nurse finished cleaning and gauzing the scrapes up and down his arm and told him that he should keep it real easy for the next forty-eight hours and generally just stay sitting or standing. “If your symptoms worsen just go straight to the hospital. But in all probability, you'll be just fine with some rest.”

“You know what, Aunt Meredith, I'm just gonna head out and wait in the car. I don't really want to deal with this,” Isaac said a bit awkwardly and shuffled out of the room and into the hallway. His aunt didn't stop him and Erica quickly followed him out.

“So this is what you mean by 'you're not feeling well'. So much for the flu,” she said, her face shifting slightly from anger and sympathy, as if she didn't know which emotion she really wanted to express.

“I didn't think it was that bad. I didn't know I'd be puking in the middle of the hallway.” True, though he did feel nauseous enough that it should've been a clue.

“Really, 'cause I remember being able to convince you to go home. You knew how bad it was I just had to push you to go home.” She paused for a moment. “It's not like with your dad again where you keep things from us and we pretend to not notice when you're covered in bruises. We're here for you.” She spoke for Boyd even though he wasn't there and pulled her phone out in one swift motion perhaps to send him another text about what was going on.

Isaac turned his gaze to the floor again, experiencing another wave of shame. “I dunno. I didn't want everyone to get all worried.” He didn't want the attention.

“Well it happened anyways.”

“Yeah, I know. Whatever, it doesn't matter anymore. And you shouldn't be missing history, isn't it your worst subject?” He said, hoping to get her to leave him alone.

She cringed. “Yeah maybe.” She gave him a half annoyed look before stopping as he continued on to the parking lot. “We do worry about you, Isaac.”

He rolled his eyes at her, not really knowing how to respond. “See ya.”

He slouched forward, just so done with the day. Moments like these made him want to try out drinking to see what was so great about it, anything to help soothe his pride. Before he got to the car he noticed Stiles Stilinski sitting in his beat up jeep, skipping class nonchalantly. The window was opened a crack and he could hear the police radio from inside—right, his dad was a cop but that didn't make what he was doing any less weird.

As if cued by his thoughts, a siren cried out in the somewhere nearby, and it sounded like it was getting louder, coming toward the school. It wasn't a cop car, though, thank god—for a split second Isaac thought his uncle or someone had decided to get the authorities involved with Jackson's hit and run. Perhaps this was worse, though, it was an ambulance.

Before he knew it the ambulance had parked in front of the school and paramedics were rushing out. Oh god, no one better have called an ambulance for him. Please, that would be too ridiculous.

But they hurried past him into the school. What the hell happened? Isaac turned back to Stiles in his Jeep and they made eye contact for a short moment. Soon the trio of paramedics were carrying out a student in a stretcher. A teacher and handful of students followed after, watching anxiously as they loaded the boy into the back of the ambulance. Closer now, he could see it was Greenberg unconscious and being carried away. Allison was among the students.

Isaac approached her, his curiosity stronger than his shyness at the moment.

“What happened?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No one knows. He fell asleep but no one tried to wake him till the period was almost over. No one could wake him. Danny shook him pretty hard and he didn't react at all. Someone eventually checked his pulse and it was pretty low.”

“Shit. Just fell asleep and won't wake up?” Isaac asked. Greenberg should've been too young to get a stroke or anything like that.

“I guess.” She looked visibly worried, maybe her and Greenberg were friends.

“Jeez, and I was upset about getting hit by a car.” Well so much for Isaac's stupid worries. He barely even knew Greenberg, but it was still scary to see something like this happen to a classmate.

It was cute to watch her as she registered what he said. “What?” Allison asked suddenly noticing the bandages on his arm, “Were you hit by a car?”

“Yeahhh, it's been a fun morning.” He probably should've dialed back his sarcasm, but he was at a point of just not caring at this moment. He remembered something about concussions and decision making but did not dwell on this train of thought.

“Oh my god, are you okay?”

Isaac felt a stir of butterflies at the idea of Allison being concerned about him. “Yeah, I'm fine. A little scrape, a little concussion. I'm not getting hauled off in an ambulance so that's the important part.”

Allison nodded slowly. “I see your point.”

“Anyways, I should get going,” he said in a low mumble, not knowing how to end the conversation properly.

“Alright, see ya,” she said, looking concerned again before turning away to join the other students in going back inside.

The implied meaning behind the words “see ya” bounced around in his head the entire car ride home.

Isaac spent the rest of the day lying back in bed, half asleep--but he was definitely not supposed to actually go to sleep, apparently, not with a concussion. And his aunt would check on him every so often to make sure of that. He ended up watching a lot of youtube videos and playing over in his head what he saw today at school. Scott. Fuck, was that even possible. There was no logical explanation, but there was no way he would mistake that face, that voice. Something in his brain must’ve really been jostled by the impact to start imagining things like this. Like he must have somehow projected Scott’s face to the guy he bumped into. Something like that.

The concussion really had left him feeling lethargic, but he was feeling well enough to get himself back to the high school at the end of the day to get to film appreciation club. It was basically the only thing he liked about high school.

His aunt dropped him off, talking about how he had been talking a lot with Jackson's parents and about what was going to happen with that. Isaac didn't really want to hear it but it looked like his aunt was going to sue on his behalf. Well, it'd definitely be cool if he got some cash out of this.

He was walking up to the building just in time to run into Eric and Boyd walking away.

“Isaac? What are you doing here?” Erica asked. Her and Boyd were walking along the school's field, taking the trail behind it to get home.

“Film Appreciation Club?” he asked. “I mean, I am the president.”

“He really did hit his head hard,” Boyd said, making a face at Erica.

“Isn't it today?”

“Today's Wednesday,” Erica said. “Next meeting's tomorrow.”

“Shit. My brain must be mush.” Fuck if Jackson gave him fucking brain damage.

“Yeah, jeez, are you sure you should be walking around?”

He shrugged. “Wanna help me walk my bike home?”

They found his half ruined bike still chained to one of the school bike racks and Boyd was the one who ended up dragging it behind them. As they walked along the field again they all watched as the lacrosse team ran across the field, it was hard to tell who was who with their helmets on. “Try-outs. I wonder how Liam's doing.”

“Doesn't our school team sort of suck?” Erica asked.

“I dunno, maybe that's why Mr. Finstock is always in a bad mood,” Isaac offered.

“Is Liam that short one?” Boyd asked, pointing.

“Yeah, I think so. He's actually pretty good.” Isaac said with a nod.

“It's so weird you're related to such a jock,” Erica said, also staring at the players now, probably looking to find Danny among them.

Isaac looked among them as well, but just sort of trying to categorize them. Why were they all similar? What made them so much better at life?

One of them had a certain energetic body language that made him stare, until it looked like they were staring back. The guy then took off his helmet and smiled wide enough for him to see across the field. Isaac couldn't help but smile back.

Shit, that was his dream boy. That was Scott. For whatever reason Scott was in Beacon Hills and he was trying out for the lacrosse team. Scott sent him a deliberate wink before putting his helmet back on and returning to the rest of the people trying out.

“What!” Erica exclaimed.

“Who was that?” asked Boyd, staring at him.

“That-that's the guy that I ran into earlier today. You know the one I asked you about,” he said nodding at Erica.

“Your face is the color of a tomato, Isaac. Oh my god,” said Erica, amused.

“Shut up. But I sort of know that guy. I mean...” He had decided that the next time he was talking to the both of them he would just get it out that he was into guys. He couldn't keep it a secret if Scott was at their school now.

“You know him?” Boyd asked. They had all eventually stopped walking at one point and they continued to stare at the guys playing lacrosse.

“Yeah, I uhh, guess I do.” They were all silent for a moment, perhaps them assuming he had more to say. “Shit, yeah. And also... I like him, and I'm into guys-- guys and girls. And yeah, I'm bi.” He said it out all in a deliberate and awkward flow of words, his face still warm with embarrassment.

Both Erica and Boyd were quiet for a solid second, Erica wide-eyed asked, “So, you're dating him?”

“What?! No, I'm not dating him. God, I don't even know how to act around him yet.” And it almost felt like a lie, because in his dreams it always felt like they were dating somehow, and being in his waking hours didn't seem like a good reason for them to stop. Unless he was just going crazy. People don't spontaneously erupt from your dreams. That's not how things worked. Was this some hardcore brain damage?

“I mean,” Boyd started, “we don't really care what you're into. As long as it's like, not pedo stuff.” Erica nodded in agreement and Isaac released a long breath of air and nodded back at the both of them. He knew he didn't have to worry about what they would think, but it was a huge relief finally spilling the beans. Or at least, some of the beans.

“So, where'd you meet him? It's his first day here,” Erica said. “That's why you were acting so weird when you ran away from him, right?”

“I didn't run away! I just had to get out of the classroom!” he said, getting a little too worked up about it.

“Yeah, but you suddenly had to get out of the classroom at a full sprint, even though you had just displayed how weak on your feet you were,” she replied with a bit of a snort.

“Look, I just wasn't expecting to see him there. Right in front of me. He always seemed... larger than life to me.”

Erica was quiet for a few beats. “You really like him, don't you?”

His stomach did a few somersaults, and bit the corner of his lip, looking away from both of them because he was feeling so much excitement he was afraid they would see it plainly on his face. “... I don't know what to think, but, I can't be such a piece of chicken shit. I need to try something with him. So I can't really be in the closet anymore.”

Boyd whistled.

“And I thought you were crazy about Allison,” Erica said. Which made him feel a little guilty. He did really like Allison, but with her there'd never been a chance.

All he did was shrug.

Not too far from where the three of them stood were the bleachers, where Lydia and Allison sat also watching the players. Lydia was no doubt watching Jackson, and had probably dragged Allison along to keep her company. Looking closer though, Lydia seemed more focused on the book in her lap and Allison was the one watching intently.

“Go Scott!” she cheered, grinning and celebrating when he scored on Danny who was playing as goal keeper.

A terrible fear rose inside of him. Wait, what if Scott wouldn't be into the idea of dating him after all. Now that he actually had other real people as choices. And anyone would in their right mind would choose Allison over him.

“Let's go,” Isaac said, already on the move and the two of them soon followed.

“So, are you going to ask him out, then?” Erica asked. It was weird how quickly that conversation had been put to the side and she was talking about his new boy crush like they were really talking about Allison.

“Fuck, I don't know. Yeah, I guess so. Am I stupid for thinking I have a chance?”

“Hm, well you aren't actually bad looking,” Erica said.

“Gee, thanks. My sense of self worth has suddenly been restored,” Isaac replied dryly.

“She has a point,” Boyd said with a sense of authority on the subject like he had thought about this before. “If you didn't slouch and look so bitter all the time... and had dressed differently, you'd look, you know, actually good.”

Erica nodded. “That's what I mean. Even if I dressed better I still look like a piece of shit.”

“Fuck off. You look way better than me,” he said, but he realized that was probably the wrong thing to say.

“Let's just get back to the point,” Boyd said gently. “I was just trying to compliment you or whatever. But also say that your clothes sort of suck.”

Erica snorted. “And your hair too. I've told you forever now that you need to get your hair cut shorter.”

He quickened his pace and took his shitty bike away from Boyd. He quickly noticed that the direction it went in was lopsided almost like a fickle shopping cart. “Ugh, whatever, I'll see you guys tomorrow.” He turned at the next corner as they continued ahead toward Boyd's, the usual after school hang out spot.

“Oh, Isaac, why didn't you say you needed a ride back home?” his aunt asked after he had got home and made his way to the kitchen.

“I'm feeling better.” He poured himself some juice and took a few more pills of acetaminophen as quickly as he could to avoid any long conversations.

“I’m looking into the appropriate legal consequences with that Whittemore boy, he won't get away with what he did.” Those words blared across his mind for a moment, deciding he would deal with his aunt possibly going into a legal frenzy with Jackson. That was something he did not want to have to deal with.

He just nodded and muttered an 'okay', before retreating back upstairs to his room. He still felt like shit, and even though he had spent a good majority of the day napping he could feel the nausea and drowsiness calling him back to his bed. Later that evening his aunt even brought dinner on a tray up to his room. He took a few bites of the lasagna before going on facebook. He had a grand total of fifty friends, but Erica and Boyd were enough for him. Except perhaps they weren't. Neither of them were answering his messages.

He sighed, wishing for another fleeting moment that he had more friends. Or at least had more acquaintances. Dumb enough as it was, at least he would have higher dating prospects. Speaking of which, his thoughts doubled back to his mystery boy. Scott. He couldn't be really the boy from his dreams, so to confirm his doubts he searched his name and came up with one Scott McCall. It was definitely him, but the account had just been made four hours earlier. And somehow in those four hours he already had about as much friends as Isaac had.

With a bit of trepidation he sent Scott a friend request of his own. Blinking his eyes slowly, he found a good and long EDM playlist on youtube and drifted off into a deep sleep. He hoped his aunt and uncle's sympathy would mean they'd leave him alone for the rest of the night. Not only had he been hit by a car but he also puked in the middle of the school and now his dream crush was trying out for the lacrosse team.

You know, your normal Wednesday.

He had to actually read a chapter of his biology textbook to lull him to sleep, the dullness of the book to outweigh his anxious thoughts. When he finally fell asleep it was deep.

The sky was lit up with a million sparkling diamonds. Just like the song. Except the sky was at his feet, and the ground was an expansive darkness highlighted by the Milky Way. He couldn't tell if he was flying or falling but quickly realized he was simply standing, on nothing in particular, but standing nonetheless. He looked up and saw the earth. Bright, colorful, and beautiful, and almost close enough for him to touch it. It was the biggest thing in the sky but from where he stood it seemed so much smaller.

His own smallness next to the earth chilled him with an unbearable loneliness.

“Scott?” he called out, almost instinctively. He looked out into the void of space and called his name out again. This time it was Scott's absence that clued him in that he was dreaming.

He still felt so alone, though.

“Someone?” he called out, “Anyone?” The scene shifted beneath his feet and his barefeet were now slipping under clear running water. He was now in a cold, wintry place, snow covering everything around him.

“Scott?” he called out again. Nothing. He caved in on himself and tentatively said, “Allison?” Thinking back on last night's dream.

Slowly, patches of the snow melted away and a gray stone path began to reveal itself before him; as he followed it the sky grayed. Gradually, the snow and bitter cold began to disappear.

“Isaac?” she asked, and for some reason Allison seemed surprised to see him there. “What are you doing here? And naked.” She said with a snort, and muttered something else under her breath.

Now Isaac was suddenly confused and embarrassed as he glanced down to confirm that he was just wearing his blue boxer shorts.

Allison, on the other hand, was wearing the same ancient Greek clothes as the last time he'd dreamt of her. And he was in nothing but boxers.

“You're dressed like... who? Some Greek god?” he asked, bringing attention to her.

She shrugged. “Artemis, wasn't it? Goddess of hunting, virtue and childbirth.” He could quite easily imagine her as a goddess.

“I, uh, just always thought of her as the goddess of the moon.” The words had just left his mouth when the scene shifted and they were now standing under the light of a bright full moon.

This made her laugh. Or maybe she was just laughing at him. Either ways, he couldn't help but laugh back.

“You don't have Scott with you this time?” she asked.

“I don't know where he is...” The way she was looking at him made his cheeks heat up. “Do you?”

“Do you remember last night?” she asked, looking amused. If this was some weird continuation of last nights dream he could definitely be on board. His thoughts were so thick, like held down by a heavy fog, but he eventually communicated across his answer and nodded.

“Now look who's wearing funny clothes,” she teased, her dimples lighting up her smile.

He looked down to see himself now wearing gold sandals and draped in what looked to be an ancient Greek toga, styled to match Allison's.

“That's more like it,” he said, for some reason feeling much more confident in the dream world.

“I was looking for Lydia, wanna come?” She seemed to fall into a bit of a daze as well, or perhaps just overly impulsive.

He nodded again. “Maybe we can find Scott too.”

She offered him her hand and he took it without a second thought. She led him into a shift in reality. The lighting was as if the sun shone a deep shade of magenta and the buildings dripped carrot orange fluid endlessly onto the streets and sidewalks below.

“Of course this is where we'd find Lydia,” he remarked with a snort. The roads were skewed madly into the sky as if from an Escher painting. Lydia herself walked onto the scene as if a spotlight should be following her. She was donning a billowy satin dress, Hollywood makeup and gliding along toward them in probably the highest heels he's ever seen.

“And here's our first contestant, Lydia Martin, looking luxurious in that well-fitted dress.” Lydia walked forward on what he now noticed was a stage. In fact, him and Allison were on the stage too, just a bit off to the right. Isaac was now in a tailored purple pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back and wearing leather dress shoes. Allison grinned in her poofy sparkly dress, hair styled in elegant waves.

“Oh my god, I think we're competing in a beauty pageant!” Allison exclaimed and broke out into laughter. He leaned forward in laughter too; this was ridiculous.

“God, with this being a dream I'm just glad that I'm not wearing a dress too.”

Allison jerked her attention toward him curious and clearly alarmed. “You know that this is a dream?”

And with a sick twist in his gut he violently woke up.


	3. My Slumbering Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song of the chapter: ["My Slumbering Heart"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziX-fZV5y24&list=PL9e_xvtSIXg6uTU7u3qs9HT6Zyhp176QE&index=4&t=0s), by Rilo Kiley.

He woke gasping for air. The dream itself wasn't terrifying but there had been something jarring about it that he couldn't quite remember. He had met up with Allison; that he couldn't complain about. So what had it been?

He should write this dream down too. But where had Scott been? God, had what happened yesterday even been real? Isaac spilled out of his bed and again went to his computer and typed out his dream in a half asleep flurry. He reread yesterday's dream and then reread the one he had just written down. Allison had said something to him just before he woke up. Shit, if only he could remember.

By the time he had made it downstairs it was still fairly early; he hadn't paid much attention but the dream had woken him up around five in the morning. His uncle had already left for work but his aunt and Liam were in the kitchen. His aunt looked visibly surprised but smiled at him.

“You feeling okay?” she asked.

He nodded, forgetting for a moment that he'd been hit by a car yesterday. Sure, he'd woken up with bruises covering half of his body but there were other, stranger things occupying his thoughts. Liam made eye contact with him just as he was finishing his cereal. Most of the time he got out of driving him to school but with him being injured yesterday his mom was probably forcing him to.

“Yeah, uh, sleeping really helped,” he said.

“Arnold said that if you're still feeling nauseated or anything at all like that you should stay home and rest.”

How strange, for an adult to be invested in his health. Thinking back on it, his dad had probably given him a handful of minor concussions judging from the number of times he felt the world spin after taking a hard hit.

“I'm actually feeling mostly fine.” Any other time he would have taken the chance at skipping school but how could he skip school now that he knew that Scott would be there and in his homeroom class no less?

“I've worked it out so at the very least you won't see Jackson at school today.”

This caught Liam's attention, and frankly Isaac's too.

“Uh, is he suspended then?” Isaac asked.

“Yeah, we're working on getting together a restraining order. We're not going to tolerate this sort of violence.”

At that Liam seemed to bristle in his seat, while Isaac nearly choked on his honey nut cheerios.

“Restraining order?”

“From what we heard from your friend Erica, he seems the type that might retaliate... We can't have anything further happening.”

Oh man, what was he supposed to say to that? That he was used to it? He didn't want any more attention on the subject but she was probably right about Jackson getting back at him. It was also hard to believe that they'd go through all this trouble. Was it just for show? If they did nothing they'd look like uncaring guardians. But before he could actually say anything the doorbell rang. The three of them exchanged glances, no one was expecting anyone this early in the morning. His aunt went to answer it as Isaac continued on his cereal.

A moment later his aunt turned to both of them. “Isaac, it's for you? A friend?” She sounded just a bit too surprised to discover that he had another friend besides Erica and Boyd. To be fair, he was surprised as well. Who else even knew his address? The mystery person peeked inside and gave a casual wave.

“Hey, Isaac!” Because of course it was Scott. Looking way too awake for this hour and standing in his fucking doorway. Suddenly the vomiting-concussion feeling was returning but he didn't think he could blame this instance on a head injury.

“Scott, hey...” He'd already abandoned the remains of his breakfast and had practically leapt towards the door.

“I wanted to see if would like to walk to school with me?” He acted so casual.

Isaac nodded, or at least he thought he did and muttered a good bye, grabbed his backpack and slammed the door behind him without any further thoughts on the matter. And now he was alone outside with Scott. This wasn't some bizarre coincidence, because it couldn't possibly be. All the same, he felt like he might've been going crazy what with reality and dreams overlapping so vividly. He pinched the skin of his forearm to check if he was somehow still dreaming.

Now he was staring, it was hard not to, especially with Scott's face all lit up like the fucking Fourth of July. And then Scott's arms were wrapped around him in a warm hug, it took Isaac an awkward amount of time to hug back with his heart pattering like an entire marching band full of snare drums. By the time they pulled apart his cheeks were hot and he was frozen in place.

Scott's smile grew when he looked at him. “Come on, you're gonna have to show me the way to school. I don't actually remember.” Without even a hint of hesitation he grabbed Isaac's wrist and gently directed him away from the driveway.

Shit, they had barely taken a few steps away from the front door. Isaac just knew that his aunt would be curious enough to watch as they walked away.

“Isn't this great?” Scott said, lowering his hand to meet Isaac's and gave it a squeeze.

“Uh huh,” he answered with a jerky nod. Isaac didn't know if he should pull away or not, being awake around Scott was about ten times more stressful than he had imagined. When he was in a dream he didn't have to worry about Scott not liking him or laughing at him but now there was a distinct possibility that he could screw this all up. “No offense or anything, but how are you … uh, real?”

Scott's face scrunched up for a second in obvious contemplation. “Yeah, about that. I don't actually know.” He grinned. “Believe me, this is a surprise to me too.”

“But you _are_ real...” Isaac took a deep breath. “And I'm not going crazy. This isn't making any sense.”

“I guess I'm used to things not making sense,” Scott said with a shrug, walking at a casual pace beside him. They were still holding hands but Isaac couldn't handle that right now so he pulled his hand away and shoved it in his pocket.

“So this is like another dream to you?”

“Oh no, not at all. I guess I should explain some things. There's a world where dreams live—or weird dimension or something, I don't know. I'm still getting used to being here, like everything pretty much makes sense. It's fun how predictable things can be.”

Isaac laughed, still filled with nervous energy. Dream world, sure, because of course there was a dream world. “Okay, but you don't have any idea on how you got here?”

“I mean, it was you, wasn't it?” He said, looking at Isaac expectantly.

“Me? I can't-- I didn't even know you were out until I saw you at school.”

“It must've been you,” he said earnestly, “you were the last one I saw, you must remember, we had just kissed.”

“Because we--?” Isaac's face felt very hot. Shit, for some reason he felt like the prince in Sleeping Beauty. Except instead of kissing someone out of their slumber he had kissed them right into his own fucking reality. “...That still doesn't make any sense.”

Scott frowned, looking a bit confused. "Why's that? I guess I still don't get all the ways the waking world works."

“Uhhh, wow. Well, emotions don't actually impact reality here. Unless you mean in like, the metaphorical sense,” Isaac answered.

Scott seemed skeptical for a moment. “That _is_ a big difference. Okay… What are things that affect reality here then?”

Now Isaac didn't know how to answer right away. “Uhhhhhhh, science?”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense.”

“You do know what science is, right?” Isaac asked. It was possible he did know about science but it was just messed up dream science and nothing useful.

“Yeah!” he said, sounding a bit defensive now. “I know about a lot of things.”

Isaac bit his lip, trying not to laugh. Just the way he said It sounded like a little kid. Scott took a sharp breath then exhaled long.

“It depends on whose dream I'm in. What they know, what they expect I know... I did take a look at my textbooks for school though, and I may be missing some things.”

“Yeah, don't worry about it I'm sure you'll catch on quick enough,” Isaac said meeting his eyes.

Scott grinned. “I'm actually just grateful that I can read. People don't dream with coherent letters all that much—but I guess the general ability to read came through to me, though.”

They were getting close to the school now and Isaac was getting reluctant to go any further. It would mean dealing with staring and questions from people about what happened yesterday. And if things went well, he'd probably be out of the closet soon too which was both exciting and terrifying. Scott seemed to notice his apprehension as they both slowed to a stop.

“Hey, are you alright?” His voice was gentle, more similar to how he remembered it. Isaac only noticed now that Scott was a bit of a goof. Perhaps they were both more flawed when awake than asleep.

“I don't know.”

Scott reached forward, lightly touching his elbow and pulling them closer. “You've been acting sort of weird... Is it me? Did you not want me here?”

Isaac shook his head before he could think of what to say. “No, god. There's shit going on at school and I just never thought this was a possibility. And I didn't think I'd be out until like college or something. Everyone at Beacon Hills is a dick.”

“So I'm making things harder for you,” Scott concluded.

Isaac gave a heavy sigh. “No, 'cause I officially don't give a shit anymore. Screw all of them. Except Boyd and Erica, of course. You need to meet them.”

Scott's smile returned quickly. “I made a friend yesterday too.”

Because of course Scott made a friend on his first day of school. He probably will have his own fan club by next week.

“Oh yeah?” He pressed the button for the crosswalk. “Someone on the lacrosse team?”

“Yeah, actually. We met at try-outs. He's really cool. I said I'd help him out this weekend so he'd have a better chance of playing in a game.”

Isaac raised his eyebrows. “Speaking of that, I didn't know you were so good at lacrosse. I didn't peg you for a jock.”

He shrugged. “I'm sort of figuring this stuff out as I go.”

They crossed the street before the first school bus arrived. As they walked toward the school doors Scott reached for his hand again, he was nervous still but he didn't pull away.

“You don't have any idea how you did it?” Scott asked, his voice soft and his eyes more focused on him than earlier. Isaac felt a flush creep up his cheeks and neck.

“Honestly, I'm still trying to convince myself that I'm not going crazy. Let me tell you, I'm glad there's witnesses,” he said with a short laugh.

They had stopped near his locker, and Scott slowly walked him forward until his back was against it. For a moment his body relaxed and that was when Scott gently pulled his head down to kiss him. He leaned in without hesitation, this part felt familiar. He could admit that it wasn't too crazy to imagine something like this pulling him into an entirely different reality too.

Scott was slowly pulling down the collar of his shirt, his lips sucking on a few places on his neck. For just a moment his mind snapped back to reality and he realized with a start that there were people starting to fill the hallways and this was some serious PDA. By impulse he pulled away.

“Hey, hey, hey--” He said quickly.

Scott stopped but he looked confused. “What's wrong?”

He gestured a bit to the area around him. “Uh, just, that's too much... At least here.”

“Why?”

“'Cause there's people here,” and when he still saw Scott's confusion he added, “Look, I think this is just another weird dream difference.” Which actually made a lot of sense now that he thought of it, in dreams most people didn't think twice about being so expressive in public.

Scott nodded slowly, and then smiled a bit bashfully. “That sounds dumb, but okay.”

“Yeahhh,” Isaac said awkwardly. “About twenty minutes till homeroom and I guess we have the same first class, that's cool. You know, I heard yesterday that some kid ran out of the room and puked all over the hall.”

“Wow, that's really gross... I heard he totally barreled through the new guy too.”

“Shit, and I heard that new guy is really cute too,” he said, embarrassed by his own corny flirting. But it looked like Scott's cheeks were now a bit pinker.

For the moment however, he wouldn't have to worry about terrible flirting because Erica and Boyd walked up to the two of them, Erica looking intrigued and Boyd just staring.

“Uh, hey, guys—Scott, this is uh, Boyd and Erica. And... Scott.” He looked between his only friends and his dream boy quickly.

Scott beamed. “Hi. Did Isaac mention anything about where I'm from?”

Well, that was a way to get to the point. Boyd shook his head and Erica looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh, no, I haven't. That's uhh, for another day.” Or perhaps never. Even Scott seemed to know that telling someone you came out of a dream was a quick way for people to think you're crazy.

“Nice to meet you, Scott,” Erica said, smiling but still eyeing him curiously.

Boyd nodded. “So, you guys dating?” he asked, and was quickly met with an elbow from Erica.

Isaac didn't know whether to be embarrassed or angry. His brain was going on overload with things to consider and new emotions to navigate. Scott for once looked a bit unsure, his dark eyes meeting his like a question mark.

“I'd like to think so,” Scott said after a moment.

He was going to frame those five words in his memory forever. Shit, things were really happening.

“Yea-, yeah. Me too,” Isaac agreed with a crack in his voice. He tried to stand up a bit more confidently but he could only imagine that he looked restless and fake.

Scott smiled ear to ear and almost looked like he was going to come at him with another spontaneous kiss but just managed to hold himself back. “This is all so exciting.”

“I'd say! We just hear about you yesterday and now you guys are together,” said Erica.

Isaac shrugged. Talking about things like this just made them more embarrassing.

“Yeah, and just being in high school now, it's so weird, but in a fun way,” Scott continued.

“Oh, were you homeschooled?” Boyd asked.

Scott paused, realizing his mistake.

“Yeah, he was,” Isaac answered for him. “He managed to convince his mom to let him go to public school for his senior year.”

Scott nodded. “She’s a bit overprotective.”

“My mom too,” said Boyd with a sympathetic nod. The conversation continued carefully but by the time the bell rang things were at a more comfortable level between the four of them.

People were staring at Isaac in homeroom. Or maybe at Scott, he _was_ the hot new kid after all, and of all the people the hot new kid was sitting with one of the school's losers. Scott had his schedule out so Isaac could see if they shared any other classes. It looked like they had two classes besides homeroom together—pre-calc and health.

“You do know math, right?” Isaac asked.

Scott shrugged. “They had the entire schedule ready by the time I got here yesterday. I didn't have fourth period yesterday, so I guess I'll see.”

“You are so chill. What the hell,” Isaac said with a bit of a smile, shaking his head slowly.

“What can I say? When I came into reality yesterday, reality was ready for me.”

Isaac let out a snicker. “Jeez, let's hope so.”

Erica turned back to make a face at them. She'd been rushing through some homework that was due next period. Admittedly, they hadn't really been watching what they had been saying.

“Did your mom not teach you how to do math?” she asked.

“I definitely can do math,” Scott replied, and subtly cringed. “Everyone can do math. And I can too. Angles, sums, remainders…”

Nice. Very natural, Scott.

Erica gave Isaac a look of disbelief. He couldn't tell if she was weirded out by the fact that it looked like Scott hadn't been taught basic algebra or that he was being strangely sarcastic.

“Okay...” she said and turned back around and got back to doing her assignment.

Scott gave him a meaningful look. “Maybe you should tell her,” he said at a very quiet volume now.

“It would only make us both look crazier than we already are.”

“But I'm a terrible liar. I don't think dreams ever have much of a reason to lie.” Man, Scott came from a world that was always incredibly open. It was just a little bit comforting to know that he hadn't been just putting up with him for the time he's known him, but there still was concern in regards to free will when it sounded like Isaac's subconscious was part of what had shaped him.

“Well, it won't just be here. You'll have to get by with everyone you talk to for more than two minutes.”

Scott seemed to contemplate this. “Yeah, okay. But... they are your close friends, aren't they?”

Isaac sighed. “Okay I'll tell them eventually. Just not right now.”

In between classes Isaac met with Scott at his locker, and they slowly patched together a false back story for Scott to use. Apparently Scott hadn't come to Beacon Hills alone, and in a sense he already had a partial back story. His dream mom had come with him, though she hadn't really dream home-schooled him, she did have a new job as a nurse at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. They also went over general tips about “real life” high school interactions. Like not taking off your shirt in the middle of class when you're too hot, and the whole concept of not talking when the teacher is lecturing the class, and raising his hand when he had a question.

Isaac sat down in French realizing that things could definitely be going worse in regards to well everything, social interaction included. Dreams could be really weird, and as far as things were going, Scott was catching on well enough. He was probably even better than him at math.

“Hey, you were out there, do you know what happened?”

“Huh?” Isaac answered, turning to his left. It was Stiles Stilinski. Class clown or class annoyance depending on who you were.

“You know, outside, Greenburg got hauled away in an ambulance.” He spoke quickly and conspiratorially like Isaac secretly knew what had happened.

“I wasn't actually there. I was just outside 'cause I was going home early for the day.”

“Right, you got hit by Whittemore. Did you leave like a you shaped dent in his car?” he asked, sounding amused.

“No. I don't think so. My bike's fucked up, though.”

“Well that's a real shame. Where's the sense of justice in the world?”

Of course the sheriff's son would have these ideas of justice. “It doesn't matter, he's loaded and has insurance.”

“Yeah, well--it'd be something at least. Anyways, your the new kid's--Scott's friend, right? Or boyfriend or something.”

His brain froze for about two seconds, unsure of how to respond. So, that was why he'd started up this conversation. Isaac was wondering why he was being so chatty, not that it was really out of character for him, he just usually didn't talk to him out of everyone in class.

He shrugged. “Maybe...Why do you care?”

Perhaps his tone was too aggressive, but whatever. At least his voice hadn't cracked.

“Because. I've been hanging around the guy. We're basically best friends now. So I thought I should see if it was actually you who was with him. No offense or anything, just that he didn't actually know your last name and I didn't know you were into guys.”

The teacher was trying to settle down the chatter to start class so Isaac didn't say anything else, just shot him a glare before turning his attention to the teacher. The teacher spoke in slow but steady French, asking questions and trying to engage reluctant students. Isaac bit his lip and tried to concentrate but his thoughts were definitely preoccupied by everything Stiles had said.

And the fact that it was Stiles. This must've been the friend that Scott had mentioned on their walk to school, it was a surprise to Isaac mostly due to the fact that he had said it was someone on the lacrosse team and Stiles didn't exactly scream athlete. Probably a second or third string player. But it was just the way he was so sure of himself, because how could they just become best friends that quickly? Is that just how easily Scott bonds with people?

“Et vous, Isaac?” the teacher said, startling Isaac out of his thoughts.

“Uh, what—er, quoi?”

“Qu-est-ce que vous allez faire cet weekend?”

“Uhhh, je vais dormir tard. Uhh, jusqu'a midi,” he said, stumbling out the first answer that came to mind that he thought he could say. He was pretty alright at French except when it came to speaking. The teach asked the same question to Stiles and somehow his response in French flowed out almost as quickly as it would have if it had been English.

Isaac's anger or annoyance or whatever it was returned. Just because he wasn't as good with words, with talking—he just wasn't a very social guy. Was it because he was a piece of shit that hated being around people and pushed people away or was it because he was so weird that people didn't want to waste their time talking with him? It didn't actually matter because a moment later he realized what his current problem was: he was jealous of Stiles.

No, nope, that couldn't be it. But fuck, it was exactly it. All it took was about two seconds of conversation and a few words of French to make him realize that he really was jealous. His not giving a fuck mantra from earlier this morning hadn't exactly included pettiness and your every day type of insecurity.

Well fuck that, he'd much rather worry about the extra weird dream problems than everyday bullshit. This end of the day bell rang and he tried to block Stiles' path before he left but he didn't realize how fast Stiles would be leaving his seat and ended up tripping him.

“Ah jeez, uhh, shit. Sorry,” Isaac said, not sure if he should laugh or not. It _had_ been an accident.

“Dude. Ow,” he said, shooting him a salty look.

Isaac snickered. Almost by rule Isaac was much more used to being on the receiving end of anger or annoyance, which was sad and something he'd rather not think about at the moment but it did explain his overall awkwardness with Scott (who was far too kind)—and Allison too if he was being optimistic.

“I just wanted to say that uhh, I'm glad you're friends with Scott. He mentioned you this morning.” And of the people in his class Stiles did seem decent, he sort of was a jerk sometimes but he wasn't really a bully, more like lacking a filter if anything. Perhaps that something he had in common with Scott.

Stiles seemed to process this for a moment. Or process something—he was not an easy one to read. “All that and you're not gonna help me up?”

Isaac sighed, offering him a hand.

Stiles grinned like he had won some sort of argument in his head. “Don't worry, I'm not vying to steal Scott's affections--”

“I didn't—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It'd almost be funnier if you weren't so obvious. Anyways, let's save all this fun socializing for another day, I'm gonna be late for lacrosse. With one less Greenburg and one less Whittemore I actually have a half decent chance.” His last sentence he said as he was walking out of the classroom, giving him a little salute wave.

Whatever, it was the end of the day and this time it actually was Thursday so that meant film club. A small break from everyone else. That was at least how he always thought of it: just him, Boyd, and Erica screwing around and arguing about movies. Today Isaac was not the first person to arrive in Mr. Yukimura's classroom. If it had just been Kira that would have been one thing, she'd stopped by enough to be familiar, but the two girls next to her were certainly a surprise. He _had_ invited Allison, so he really shouldn't have been so surprised but he hadn't actually considered that she'd show up. And with Lydia Martin.

He exchanged looks with Erica and Boyd who were also taken aback by this situation. He couldn't exactly blame them, long had they held a distrust of anyone popular and here were the most popular girls in school. Without much to say he gave them a shrug and continued to the front of the room to start the meeting.

As he walked closer to the front of the room he met eyes with Allison.

“Hey,” she said, her dimples showing as she smiled.

“Hey,” he said, giving a small wave as he dropped his bag to the floor unceremoniously. He made eye contact with Lydia but found himself too intimidated to actually say anything. He nodded to Kira who had been talking with the two of them, but she could be sort of awkward so he couldn't really tell how that had been going.

“I brought my friend, hope that's alright,” Allison, glancing at Lydia whose expression could have only been contempt or boredom, most likely both.

“Oh yeah,” he started, trying to keep his expression neutral. “No problem.” Not starting anything with your crush's best friend was like the first rule of ever being on their good side. Not that that mattered anymore. He wasn't supposed to be crushing on anyone else except his actual boyfriend, he reminded himself with a twist of guilt.

“So, we gonna watch some cool artsy movie or something?” Allison asked, there was definitely something strange about the way she was looking at him. One thing he knew for sure was all this social weirdness that had been going on recently were taking a lot out of him, navigating people was hard.

“Uhhh, yeah, sure if you want. I've got a pretty large choice of movies on my hard drive, we can take a vote since we didn't actually do that last meeting.”

They ended up picking the Sound of Music, which none of them had actually ever seen. Sometimes he'd actually prepare background about the film but this time he just pulled up the wikipedia. Lydia seemed only mildly interested, and Allison kept giving him strange looks but for the most part the group kept up an easy chatter.

After he started the movie, he sat at an almost awkward space between where Allison was sitting and where Erica and Boyd were. It looked like both Lydia and Boyd had already gotten out homework or notes to work on, which was normal for Boyd but Lydia looked like she was stuck in a limbo between trying not to seem interested in the movie and trying not to seem interested in her school work either.

Without warning, a paper airplane smacked him on the side of his face, and he glanced to his left quick enough to see Allison laughing quietly. There was something written on it: “You have any interesting dreams recently?”

His heart skipped a beat and then proceeded to go into overdrive. He had been thinking about the dream with her last night, about how strange it was, but that couldn't be what she was referring to. Was it something to do with Scott? No, there was no way she'd know about him unless Scott had let something slip. The quick stream of thought eventually pointed back to Tuesday when he fell asleep in class and had talked in his sleep. She must've heard about that. Eventually he began to calm down, though he was still pretty embarrassed. He stared at the note again wondering what he should be doing in response. Would it be rude if he just never responded? When he was sure Allison was looking away he folded up the paper plane and stuck it inside his pocket.

Isaac turned the lights back on as the credits rolled down on the projector screen. Usually they'd discuss the film the following Tuesday and then choose next Thursday's movie but he really felt like he should be doing a better job at filling the silence.

“You said we needed more members, right?” Kira spoke up. “Maybe you guys would want to join.”

Isaac looked at Kira skeptically; her naivety was pretty damn cute.

Apparently Lydia thought so too, or she was on another level of sarcasm because she gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe,” she said curtly.

“Uh, I'll put together some discussion questions for next week and we usually just talk and argue about stupid stuff,” he said with a shrug. Because really, that's basically what they did and they were using it as an extracurricular and it was the funnest way to get credit for watching movies and fucking around.

Allison smiled, questioning him with the raise of her eyebrows and a small head gesture. The note. She hadn't been the type to tease him before, so it was weird for her starting now. It seemed now everyone was sort of waiting for everyone else to leave first. Kira was waiting for her dad, it looked like Boyd and Erica were waiting for him, he was waiting for Allison, Lydia was waiting also waiting for Allison, and oh fuck, Allison was waiting for him.

He took a deep breath. “You guys can head out without me, I'll catch up,” he said to his friends.

“Alright, we'll be at Boyd's if you take too long...” Erica said, gathering up her bag.

Lydia didn't need such verbal cues, just one glance from Allison and she was ready for a well poised departure.

“Bye guys—See ya, Lydia,” Kira called after them.

Now it was just him and Allison slowly making there way near the door but not quite leaving entirely. He could almost physically feel his self-esteem sinking down through the floor.

“So... how do you like film appreciation club?” he asked.

“It beats waiting outside on the bleachers with Lydia as she basically uploads textbooks directly into her brain.”

“Oh, right, we do actually need members--” He pulled out the sign-up sheet and handed it to her. “Do you think Lydia will come back next week?”

“Yeah, I can drag her along. She thinks she's too cool for clubs, but one more meeting won't kill her.”

They made it into the hall, him biting his lower lip and her looking impatient.

“So, you never answered my note.”

Isaac blushed but it was half embarrassment and half anger. “Yeah... I don't know, I was still hoping that you weren't the type of person to mess with me.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Confusion fell across her face. “So, you don't remember last night?”

“Last night? I thought—well, I assumed you were talking about when I was talking in my sleep in class.”

“Oh! No, I didn't know about that. My bad. Nevermind,” she said very quickly.

This meant he was initially right about the stranger meaning behind the note. “I uhh, it's cool.” It was like his throat was tied up in a knot, but he had to say something. “Y-you were in my dream last night.” Well, his voice cracked again but it was something.

She paused, looking at him. “What happened in it?”

“I don't remember it all the way but you were there, right? Like we shared the dream... and Lydia was there too...That's what you're talking about, right?” He looked away from her, too nervous to see her reaction.

“No one ever remembers. You're the first.” He could look now and she spoke with soft reverence.

“You do that often? Sneak into people's dreams?” he asked with a nervous laugh.

“Hey now, last night you barged in on my dream, not the other way around.”

“What? I don't remember exactly, I think I was looking for—someone.” What he wrote down this morning probably had more details than he was currently recalling, would she think it was weird if he invited her over?

“Hmm, you're gonna need some practice,” she said, looking at him a bit critically. The same sort of look she had given him after he'd caught his sleeve on fire in chemistry.

“What is this even? Some sort of super power?”

“You don't even know the half of it,” she said with a self-assured smile.

Someone hit him over the head with a hammer right now because she just made a corny line sound cool, so cool in fact that he was probably making heart eyes at her at that exact moment, and this wasn't something that someone with an amazing boyfriend should be doing.

“I'm listening,” he said. Perhaps _she_ was the reason behind the sudden existence of Scott. Super power indeed.

“Do you want to--” she started, but her phone began vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out, now looking annoyed. A few muttered responses later and she hung up. “My dad—he’s very strict. I've got to get going, but we need to exchange numbers. There's too much to talk about still.”

They exchanged numbers and a few short minutes later she hopped into her dad's car and he was left alone with racing thoughts. He texted Boyd and Erica to say that he wouldn't be able to hang out—which wasn't strictly true but he really could do with some alone time, especially now that sleep didn't necessarily mean that for him anymore. Well, he could put off the alone time until after he found Scott after his lacrosse practice.

 

 


	4. Punching in a Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so hello to anyone still reading--thanks for taking the time. :)  
> I've decided to update the tags, just in case. After some reflection, I thought I'd put in PTSD, as well as abuse as there will be references to it and perhaps even flashbacks. 
> 
> This chapter's song: ["Punching in a Dream"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szi1iIkhV2E&list=PL9e_xvtSIXg6uTU7u3qs9HT6Zyhp176QE&index=5&t=0s) by The Naked and the Famous.

Lacrosse practice had ended and he noticed a few of the players making their way out of the locker room. His phone buzzed, and he glanced down expecting it to be Boyd or Erica but it was a string of texts from Allison:

“I forgot

Lydia's having a party at her place tomorrow

if you want to come?

Not the best place to talk but I already promised I would show.”

He took a deep breath in then out before he eventually typed out the response: “could i bring erica and boyd too”

“Sure, Kira too.”

He felt a pang of guilt from not really knowing Kira that well, but he did have her number saved from when she put her contact info for the club. He texted all three of them, and was still looking down at his screen when someone grabbed him from behind. Nearly jumping out of his shoes, he was met with laughter and quickly realized that it was Scott.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he said.

“Ah, no it's alright... Not all of us are ready to be tackled on a moment's notice.” It was a joke but his tone didn't match the words all that well.

Scott's forehead still had a slight glisten of sweat and the smell from practice was apparent, not all bad though. Their hands found each other and they began walking, like this was soon going to be the natural rhythm of things. He could certainly get used to this. And again, there was hardly anyone around to pay them notice since it was so late after school.

“How would you like to go to a real life high school party?” he asked Scott. Scott had mentioned a handful of real life things he wanted to try—things like going to space, becoming a mma fighter, swimming in a river, and even simply taking a drive in a car. He'd done these things before in his dream world but now he had to see how it was done in this reality.

“Did you get invited to Lydia's too?”

“Oh, yeah.” Welp, so much for Isaac being the one to invite him, but he really shouldn't be surprised by Scott turning out to be popular. Because of course he would be. “Do you know Lydia?”

“Yeah! I was going to mention that, I knew her from when we were dreams.”

It took Isaac a moment to process that. “Wait, what?”

“She was a dream like me, I hadn’t seen her in years.”

“More of you are here?” How often did dreams just slip into reality?

“Dude, believe me, I was just as surprised. No one even believed it was possible to come here anymore.”

Well, at least it was weird for him too but still. “ _Anymore_?”

“A long time ago. I don't know, time here and there are really different so it's hard to measure.”

The more Isaac heard the more questions were being raised. It was one thing to know that time felt different in a dream, and a whole other thing to find out there was an indescribable collection of dream people that just lived time in fast forward or slow motion or backwards however it is to experience time differently.

“So, would you say you're older than seventeen or younger?”

“Uhhh, both older and younger? And also seventeen.” He glanced at Isaac with an ineffable expression, then turned away again.

“Alriiight, well what did Lydia say? How'd she get here?”

Scott shook his head. “Oh no, I have no idea, we didn't actually talk to each other. She invited the entire lacrosse team to the party. I think she was pretending she didn't recognize me.”

“Bitchy as ever. I guess that shouldn't be a huge surprise.”

They walked in comfortable silence for a while, walking to Isaac's place. That made him wonder. “So, where do you and your mom live?”

“Just the next street over. We moved in with boxes of stuff we hadn't really seen before but it's definitely ours.”

“I still don't get how your mom got out too. I thought you said I was the reason you're out, but I don't remember even dreaming about your mom.”

“You've met her before, just a few times though. Probably just forgot. But I guess there are some minimum conditions you've set in your mind about how I would be if I were in your world and one was that I had a mom. Good thing you didn't think I'd be an orphan,” he said with a bit of a laugh.

Isaac could easily see why his subconscious would spare Scott the reality of having a father, but not everyone had shitty dads. “I'm sorry your dad's not here too.”

Scott shrugged. “He was never really present before either.”

A soft breeze rustled the yellow and orange leaves in the trees, distracting Scott for a moment. He and Scott talked about seasons for a bit, then graffiti and stray cats. Even completely average things were reminders of how crazy this situation was. They walked together to his place, Scott kissed him the cheek goodbye. He wanted to drag him up to his room but they probably both needed a bit of recoup time.

“I miss you,” Isaac murmured.

Scott nodded, understanding his meaning automatically. “I've got dreams of my own now. You'll have to find me like you've done with other people. You may not remember fully...”

“Oh.” Apparently he really needed to work on his ability to remember dreams.

If it were up to Isaac he'd go immediately to bed and not wake up until seven am the next morning, but he had homework to catch up on, and his uncle seemed to put in effort to make his favorite dinner: bacon and broccoli mac and cheese. He just couldn't wait till he could try to find Allison and Scott in his dreams.

“Thanks, Uncle Arnold,” he said, and distinctly made eye contact with Liam. Why'd he look so pissed?

He decided to ignore that. But he was tired and wasn't below playing to his aunt and uncle’s sympathy.

“I'm uh, not feeling totally fine right now. Is it alright if I take this to eat in my room?” He just needed to be away from any more problems for the rest of the day, just all of these interactions were just too much.

Wrapped up in a blanket he ate his mac and cheese, listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and when he thought he might pass out on his bed he instead found all he could do was lie there: he was still way too awake.

He got through some homework, texting Boyd a few times when he was stuck on a problem. It brightened him more than he thought it would when Scott texted him asking about an assignment. Erica called, asking about specifics of the party, none of them had a car and they didn't want to walk to Lydia's supposed mansion. Isaac mentioned how the entire lacrosse team got invited (which included her crush Danny) and that meant Liam was invited as well, fat chance he'd be willing to drive them, though.

Eventually the conversation made its inevitable turn to him and Allison and of course him and Scott. Somehow he'd thought bringing up Scott's origins would be easier later in the day but that was not the case, and really he didn't know what the deal was with Allison and explaining it now would be about as weird as explaining Scott by this point.

“I don't know, what do you want me to say?” he said, after a pause that was mainly filled with 'uhh, well, uhh'.

“Everything. Where he came from for starters. Or you know, how long have you been keeping him from us. You guys are a lot closer than you were letting on yesterday.”

He could see how this could appear as though he were keeping a secret from them for a while now, but fantasies didn't generally count as secrets, but no he was not going to argue that. Not tonight.

“I was just, I was really nervous about coming out. I didn't know if you guys would be weird. I'm still afraid of my family's reaction.” Speaking of which, was that why Liam had been glaring at him downstairs? Shit.

Erica made a disgruntled sound. “Sure, that's understandable, but you couldn't have told us about your totally-platonic-friend-Scott-McCall?”

“You're right, Erica. That would never ring any bells,” he said sarcastically.

“You know what I mean.”

“Not mentioning him wasn't the same as lying?” Please, just please let her drop it for now. He didn't want to have an argument about this. A few more questions and she did end up dropping it, but 'only because they were going to an actual high school party tomorrow'.

This time it wasn't so difficult to fall asleep. He turned off the lights and buried his face into a pillow. In those moments of limbo between being awake and asleep he heard a high-pitched ringing. His concussion? For a while he succeeded in ignoring it but eventually it grew to be too loud and grating.

He shot up from his bed, tossing his comforter off him in one violent move. The comforter was definitely his, he noted with a dull sense of clarity as he watched it fall impossibly far down into a dark pit. This, however, was not his room.

The ceiling looked just about as far away as the pit, dark and shapeless. It was easy to just imagine that it was the night sky with all the stars blacked out, a new moon perhaps. Really, the entire place was dark or at the lighter parts dim. Like some sort of cave system with his bed sitting in the middle of it.

“I'm dreaming,” he said to himself, because as far as he could tell he was absolutely alone. He repeated it a few more times to remind himself, to calm himself down. He was gradually getting better at realizing he was asleep, but he also needed to learn how to remember everything. It's not like he had a notebook or laptop with him to record everything he saw or heard.

Speaking of which, his voice didn't echo or carry, barely even registering to his own ears. The ringing was still going on, and his ears were beginning to ache.

“I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming...”

Leaving, he was leaving this place now. Both his feet and his mind were trying to accomplish this goal, starting off at a fast walk down a narrow pathway and trying to mentally change his settings. He could do that now, right? Since he knew he was only in a dream? There were waking world details he wasn't quite grasping at the moment but it was hard to concentrate when there were drop offs all around him to worry about.

And a different sound, foot steps.

“I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming,” he muttered; he had to hurry.

He should just wake up, this was getting to be too much, and the foot steps were getting progressively louder. Each time he looked behind him he saw nothing but shadows; he kept moving, increasing his pace to an anxious jog.

“Just dreaming...”

Where was he even trying to go?

“Away,” he answered his own thoughts. “To Scott.”

Right, Scott. Allison. He could find them in here, somehow. Another detail he wasn't able to parse at the moment. The lighting was getting better and he had found his way to a door, and at that same moment there was a loud shattering of glass.

“No, please...” Was that his voice? Why did it sound so small?

Glass covered the ground, several shards flecked with droplets of blood. He turned to look in all directions, to find where the footsteps were coming from and where that glass came from. He saw nothing, but the foot steps were getting louder. He bolted for the door.

This room was gray, almost everything in it was gray with hardly any colors and muted in a way he couldn't place. The door didn't have a lock, but perhaps he could barricade it. Focusing in a dream was strange because things seemed to emerge out of thin air just by paying attention. When he focused on this room it seemed to reveal book shelves and boxes and carts and random things that filled them like a strange mix between a thrift store, library, and warehouse.

He pushed a book case in front of the door, and then an aluminum chair against the handle, boxes, another book case, anything he could to block it. Suddenly the door shuddered as something pounded against it, like a beast ramming its entire body into it with no regards for its own well being.

One of the books off the shelves fell to the floor at his feet: The Great Gatsby. The strange face on the cover somehow was a reminder.

“I'm dreaming,” he said with a shudder.

Again the creature slammed itself against the door. Dreaming or not his very instinct told him to run and so he did. He looked up and around, looking for a way out or a place to hide. The ceilings were relatively low and the place was like a maze with how crammed with stuff it was. He weaved through it haphazardly until he turned right and was at a wall with an elevator. Well, that was a way out.

He pressed the up button, figuring that he was in some sort of underground facility or something. The doors opened with a pleasant ding and he hopped inside and his breath and heart rate began to steady. The floor options, instead of numbers were displayed as shapes and symbols. He didn't care; he pressed the first one that seemed innocuous enough: a rose.

Music began to play as the elevator moved upwards, a soft melody that was vaguely familiar. Maybe he had created the door to the gray room, and that he had more control over where this elevator would take him than he had originally thought.

He glanced up at the ceiling, which was red and soft-textured. Isaac reached up to touch it, and it felt like the smooth texture of a flower petal. Nice. It looked like he was even shifting the environment around him. Then the rest of the elevator was now red, and smoothed over the same way. Which was interesting for about two seconds before realized that the door, buttons, and everything else had disappeared.

That's alright, he told himself, dream elevators didn't need to have those things. But he couldn't help but think how it reminded him of a large coffin with red, satin lining. The upward movement stopped, but none of the sides opened up, instead the entire elevator tipped to the side and started moving laterally.

He tried to stand upright again but the space was definitely too small for that, and getting smaller.

“Fuck,” he muttered. In moments his logical thought process left him so he could properly let his panicked claustrophobia take over. His limbs thrashed wildly, kicking, punching and elbowing the walls as they crept closer.

The walls were no longer soft, and held no sense of fragility any more and even worse the color drained from them to a terrible scuffed and dirty white. His new ceiling had scratch marks, their angle and depth he knew all too well. Just as he realized where he was, all light disappeared and the sideways elevator motion ended. He screamed and kicked at the hard sides, but somehow this time the lid lifted. Like a madman he pushed the door fully open and jumped out, collapsing onto damp grass.

For a moment he thought he was going to vomit, but instead took heavy and staggered breaths until his heart rate was sort of normal. He had, however, pissed himself.

“Fuck.” He sunk forward toward the ground, taking in an intimate view of the grass.

He needed this dream to be over—the whole point had been to relive his dream boy adventures. Find Scott, find Allison. Instead he relived a warped version of the worst years of his life. Like a cliché, he took a piece of his forearm and pinched it hard.

Yeah, that hurt, but nothing actually changed. Of course things weren't going to be that easy, but with his eyes adjusting to the bright sun he finally took in his surroundings. This was his aunt and uncle's house (his house now he supposed), and he was sprawled across the front lawn. Clearly, on the mailbox he could read his cousin’s family name and he was pretty sure Scott said there weren’t usually real words in dreams. And the feeling of the sharpness of reality was hard to mistake: he was definitely awake. But, no--he looked behind himself from where he had awoken and the large freezer was still sitting there, looking more menacing than ever.

 


	5. Here Comes the Anxiety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song of the chapter: ["Here Comes the Anxiety"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSHeskCnXz0&list=PL9e_xvtSIXg6uTU7u3qs9HT6Zyhp176QE&index=7&t=0s) by the Wombats.

 

The rest of the morning was a blur; Isaac didn't know how he had gotten outside—but he got back inside with the emergency key that was hidden inside a decorative rock. He ran into his uncle as he passed the kitchen, drinking orange juice straight from the carton. They stared at each other for a moment, and Isaac waited for the questions to come (he must've heard Isaac come in the front door) but instead his uncle screwed the cap back on the juice.

“Don't tell your aunt about this?”

Isaac nodded. He had to stop assuming everyone was constantly judging him. His uncle was too busy worrying about his wife finding out that he had “contaminated a shared food item” (because she was low-key germaphobic) and somehow it looked like he wasn't going to yell at Isaac for being outside at an unusual hour.

“And maybe not mention me being outside either? I just needed to clear my head—I didn't really sleep well.” The lie came easily, probably because emotionally it felt pretty true.

His uncle nodded sympathetically. “You wanna stay home today? A day of rest might do some good.”

The fact that he didn't reflexively say no was telling; he was exhausted. “Uhh, maybe?”

“Look, how about this: I write you a note in case you do want to skip.” He was already tearing off a pad of paper that was on the counter. “And a note from me is especially valid because not only am I your guardian, but I'm also a doctor.”

Isaac found himself faintly smiling. “Just make it legible.”

He then went upstairs, quickly changing out of his soiled clothes; it was a miracle his uncle hadn't noticed. One rushed shower later and he collapsed into his bed and passed out but didn't really pass out. It was like some terrible limbo where he wanted to just rest but he couldn't shut off his mind because he knew the freezer was still out there and he had been under the impression that he was never going to be trapped inside of one again.

His aunt did not check to wake him up for school, something he didn't realize until he glanced at his phone and it was ten. Oh, and he also had a fresh handful of unread texts. One from each of the people he had texted yesterday evening plus one Allison Argent.

Their names seemed to glare back at him from the screen, question marks he didn't want to answer right now. There were two notes magneted to the fridge: one from his aunt saying that she was running errands and the other in his uncle's handwriting that just said “let him sleep”. He pulled off the second one and pocketed it, maybe just to keep as a reminder of his uncle's consideration. It really meant a lot.

Isaac was shoveling froot loops into his mouth when his phone buzzed in his pocket, another text—nope apparently someone was calling him. Unknown number.

“Hello?”

“See? I told you he's not dead,” said a voice he couldn't quite place.

“Uh, who is this?”

“He doesn't even sound sick, though he might have some memory problems—who can forget this lovely voice?”

Just as Isaac registered that it was Stiles speaking, Scott's came through the receiver instead.

“Hey, is everything alright?”

“I'm okay. Well, sort of. Something bad happened last night...” At that point he stood up and peeked out the window to check if the freezer was still there, and of course it was.

“Last night? Was it in a dream? I'm sorry I wasn't there with you, it's not like how it used to be. Travel in dreams is sort of limited for me--”

“Wait, Scott, are you saying this out loud with Stiles listening to everything?”

He imagined the pause on the other line was Scott and Stiles exchanging some looks.

“Uh, well, maybe. But it's not like it matters, right? He's my friend, I should just tell him.”

“-tell me what?” he heard in the background.

“Scott, you've only known him for two days. You can't be sure if you can trust him yet.” Isaac's voice was almost at a shout to get Scott's attention.

“It's been three days really, more like three and a half...”

Isaac sighed. “Do you always make friends this easily?”

“ _This_ easily? No, but that's like a sign, right?”

“Scott...”

“Come on, he won't think I'm crazy. He'll be cool.”

Well, at least this topic was easier to handle than nightmares coming to life. And he didn't want to be the overprotective jealous boyfriend, right?

In the background he could hear Stiles say, “Why would I think you're crazy??”

Another sigh. “Alright, fine. But wait for me to tell Boyd and Erica, okay? I want to be the one to tell them.”

“Yeah, no problem!”

Isaac laughed, it was nice to hear Scott cheer up so audibly so quickly. If only he could be more like that. “Anyways, shouldn't you be in class right now? Are you guys hiding out in a bathroom or something?”

“No, we're hiding outside one of the gates...behind some trees?”

Isaac didn't know where he was talking about, but it didn't really matter. “You could've just waited till lunch to call me.”

“Technically it was Stiles that called you—you weren't answering anyone's texts and your aunt said you weren't feeling well today and Stiles basically got fed up. And I did want to check in...”

“Okay, okay, I just don't want to get you in trouble on your first week of school.”

“Don't worry, we'll be fine. I'll see you after school still, right?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” It really did, and something about Scott sneaking out of class to call him certainly gave him butterflies.

“Are you going to feel well enough for the party tonight?”

Isaac had nearly forgotten about that. “Oh yeah. I'll be good for that.”

“Great. I'm so excited.”

Isaac felt the first wave of genuine happiness he'd felt since waking up. “Me too.”

“Is it alright if I text you?”

“Yeah, I'll check my phone.” And that meant he had to actually reply to everyone now, although the emotional burden that previously weighed on that task seemed less heavy now.

They hung up and Isaac went back up in his room, contemplating the idea of sleeping again but brushed it off. He was awake enough and he could grab a redbull or something. Instead he got dressed, replied to everyone, smirking as he read through the messages Scott had sent. Allison's was read last, it said: “Are you okay? Was it a nightmare?”

How did she know? Did she try to find him? For a moment he imagined her finding him and pushing back the nightmares, but it seemed she hadn't been quick enough. Dreams did seem like a hard thing to navigate, he wondered how well she could do it. He could talk to her at the party, but he sort of wanted to talk about this in private. Isaac could also just text her, but he was too nervous. He knew part of it was some irrational fear that she could just be messing with him and getting ready to use the texts as a way to make fun of him. But no, that was ridiculous, she seemed to be a genuinely kind person.

He messaged back: “How did you know?”

And now it was time to deal with the giant freezer on the front lawn. Isaac finally decided that he could drag it to the curb and tape a FREE sign to it and it would probably disappear within a day or two. And that's what he did. It made him sick to even touch the thing again or even look at it. He slapped the paper onto the front of it with blue masking tape and told himself to stop thinking about it already. It was here through unnatural means, sure, but here it was mundane and powerless.

The rest of the day was spent artfully avoiding his aunt and worrying. Mainly about the nightmare, but also about Lydia's party and at least he could sort of do something about that. And that meant biting the bullet and allowing Erica to intervene in his wardrobe choices.

He texted her when it was around lunch time at school, biting his lip wondering if he was going to regret this.

“.........thinking about the party. Do you want to help me pick out something to wear?”

It felt like something a girl would say in a teen movie, but whatever, he was the one doing the bullet biting here. It was only really now as he was both thinking about two hot people he wanted to impress at the party and looking through each individual item of clothing he owned that his stuff pretty much sucked. Or maybe it was just him. But either ways he wasn't surprised when she responded with, “if you want to actually look nice we need to go out. (and you can help me convince boyd to get a few things too)”

She wasn't exactly an aficionado in fashion quite yet but she definitely went on some sort of binge during the summer and at the very least Erica had opinions. Not to mention a lot of stylish items that she was still too nervous to actually wear in public. Perhaps tonight would be the night.

He had a decent amount of money in his bank account from working over the summer but he was hoping to save most of it for college expenses. But again he looked through his shirts, most faded and some with holes or stains or just ill-fitted. Same went for his pants; he had to wear a belt everyday because he was too skinny for the length of pants he needed. The nicest things he owned were things he'd gotten from his aunt and uncle since living with them. Isaac had avoided them because they reminded him too much of Liam's style, except for a nice blue hoodie which he wore on a pretty regular basis.

Erica and Boyd pulled up to his house not long after school ended in a green minivan that Boyd's mom sometimes let him use.

“Get in loser, we're going shopping!” Erica shouted through the open passenger window.

He snickered and hopped in, Daft Punk was playing through the speakers.

“You guys miss me?”

“It would be easier to miss you if you weren't texting us all day,” Erica said.

Boyd nodded. “A full week before I'd actually start missing you.”

Shopping turned out to be unsurprisingly boring and frustrating as he thought it would be, maybe even more so. Every so often he'd exchange a glance with either of them and it looked like they were feeling the same. Boyd and Isaac were both being stingy when it came to prices but Isaac was more desperate so he caved and eventually bought a few pricier things.

“What about you? Gonna actually wear that leather jacket?” he asked Erica at one point.

She gave him an apprehensive look and shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.”

“Come on, you can't make me buy a fucking _hipster scarf_ and just get away with playing it safe tonight.”

Erica snorted. “It looks good on you.”

Isaac glanced down inside the shopping bag to see the dark blue scarf with an apprehensive look of his own. In the right light he could admit that it looked alright on him but it was probably what people called statement pieces, and he did not want to be making any statements. It was weird to think that Erica was going through this same game of anxiety, she was often more aggressive than either him or Boyd. Isaac might come off as aggressive sometimes but it wasn't really threatening as it was creepy, hence getting ran over without fear of consequences. Boyd either was a ticking time bomb or had the actual patience of a saint. Every so often Isaac and Erica would try make him blow his temper, for no reason he could tell other than they were both sort of assholes and couldn't stand to see someone else acting so calm and quietly all the damn time.

Almost on cue, Boyd came out of one of the changing rooms wearing dark blue, tight-fitting jeans and a white v-neck. Isaac frowned, as much as this was not Boyd's style it still looked pretty good on him. His wary stance and slight slouch didn't help either, he looked too uncomfortable.

The three of them: afraid of clothes.

“It's bad, isn't it?” Boyd said with a cringe.

Erica looked at him curiously and shrugged. “Not bad...”

“But not good either.”

“No, it's just weird seeing you—either of you in anything other than a hoodie and crappy jeans.”

Their was a defensive hint to her voice, had she been visibly weirded out to see Isaac in these types of clothes too? He didn't remember that, but he'd come in and out of the changing room so many times he could've missed it.

“So, nice hoodie and nice jeans?” Isaac asked.

“Basically.”

And scarves, apparently.

“So, I'm going to change again, I hope everything you brought me isn't like this,” said Boyd with some agitation.

Erica turned to Isaac after Boyd was back in the changing room. “I'm gonna grab a few different things real quick.”

The mellowed down set of clothes turned out to be just what the doctor ordered, Boyd didn't say much but he didn't say anything negative, just looked in the mirror contemplatively. Jeans well-fitted but not tight, shirts similar in neutral gray and black. He actually ended up getting more things than Isaac.

“You guys are gonna look pretty good tonight, I think. Even better if you got new shoes...” Erica said, as they sat in food court, half way through her order of shrimp fried rice.

They had agreed that buying new shoes on top of everything else was far too high a goal and that they were done trying things on for the day.

“Are you guys sure about this? If someone calls the cops we could be screwed just for being caught at a party with alcohol.” Boyd was mixing around the teriyaki and fried rice in the styrofoam container, intermittently taking bites.

“This is a Lydia Martin party, she's got a huge-ass house, no one's gonna call on her,” Erica replied.

“Rich people can be uppity, with rich neighbors, right?”

“No one will say anything,” said Erica. “How many parties has she thrown when her parents are out of town?”

Isaac shrugged, his mouth full. He'd gotten a huge burrito and some sprite and was hoping to get it all down before his stomach realized it was full.

Boyd sighed.

“What do you think college is going to be like? Are you just going to avoid socializing?”

“No, but I don't see the point in going to parties like that. People just want to hook up and get drunk.”

Erica thought for a moment, deciding whether or not she should argue that point. “Yeah, but what's wrong with that every once and a while?”

Isaac gave a small nod. “I can definitely get on board with that.” Theoretically, anyways. He didn't know how he would handle alcohol, and supposedly people in college were different than high schoolers. At the very least they wouldn't have any previous judgments.

Boyd didn't say anything.

“We can just leave early if it's lame. Which it probably will be, no use getting our expectations up while we're still talking about high school parties,” Isaac said. If he hadn't had two people he was looking forward to seeing there he would probably be pretty apprehensive too.

“It'll be up to me anyways since I'll be driving,” Boyd said with a forced smile.

“Are you okay with not drinking?” Erica asked.

“Believe me, I'm more than okay.”

“If you say so. Anyways, Isaac, you gonna tell us what's up with Scott?”

Did Stiles take Scott seriously when he told him? Did he believe him?

“It's not--” he searched for the right words, he didn't want to try to talk about it right now, “it's not actually a big deal. Just something weird.” That was a lie, it definitely was a big deal just not really an urgent one.

“Alright. What is it, then?” Erica continued.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It's nothing, really.”

Now Boyd gave him a confused look. “You just said it was something weird.”

He could already tell he had put himself in a corner. What sort of half lie could he use here? Nothing even vaguely helpful was coming to mind. “Forget I ever said anything. It's not important,” he snapped. So much for a good lie.

Erica glared at him. “Why are you hiding something from us?”

Boyd took this as his cue to jump in, thank god. “He can tell us about it later, Erica. He said it's not something actually important.” He spoke slowly, in a coaxing way.

She seemed unappeased so Isaac added, “I'll tell you guys eventually, I promise.”

They left soon after they finished eating, Boyd dropping him off with several hours before they were supposed to head back out. To his relief the freezer was gone from the front of the yard. His aunt asked him about what he got, seeing the shopping bags.

“Some clothes. Just a couple things.”

“Is there a special occasion?” she asked.

He shook his head. “But I am going out tonight. There's a party.” Pretending the new clothes and the party were unrelated would be difficult when he would eventually leave wearing his new clothes.

“A party? At whose house?”

“Some girl at school—Lydia.” This town shouldn't be so small that she would know that Lydia was the most popular person at school.

Liam looked over at him from the couch, judgment painted on his face. “Lydia invited you?”

“Oh right, how could I forget? The entire lacrosse team gets an automatic invite. You must feel so special.”

Now his aunt could plainly tell something was up. “Liam, you said you were spending the night at Mason's tonight.”

There was an obvious pause. For a moment he looked away from his mom to glare at Isaac, the one who'd given him away. “I wasn't lying about that,” he answered, standing up.

“But you conveniently didn't mention a party.”

His expression shifted seamlessly to something significantly calmer. “Well, yeah, we were just going to stop by for a little bit. Like he said, the entire team was invited. Lydia is dating the team's captain.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I assume, despite the fact that you lied by omission, that you were planning on being smart and safe about anything you'd do at this party.”

Another pause.

“Uh, yeah,” Liam answered awkwardly.

“But at this point it's difficult to tell. You can go but you have to arrive and leave with Isaac.”

“What the hell?”

Isaac could at least agree with that sentiment. What did he have to do with this?

“He's proven to be honest and more level headed than you. And he's also older,” she said, sounding earnest. He was a little bit amazed that he had somehow left that sort of impression but he wasn't going to try to argue against it now.

Liam rolled his eyes. “I bet he was lying about even being invited.”

Isaac grit his teeth. “I was actually invited by Allison. You know, Lydia's best friend. And she invited Boyd and Erica too.” His aunt and uncle loved Boyd so he hoped that mentioning his name would grant him some trust by association.

“So it's settled. Isaac, were you going to get a ride from Boyd?” his aunt asked.

He nodded. Despite being dubbed the “responsible one” it was still annoying to get bossed around. And now he had to be Liam's babysitter. Like this was going to turn out well.

Liam shot him another nasty look before retreating into his room. Again, the feeling was pretty much mutual. One would think Isaac would've had enough sleep drama for the day but that didn't stop him from collapsing back onto his bed, turning his side in toward a pillow. People were tiring, and he needed to get away.

This dream was more light-hearted than the last several had been. Perhaps it was his frame of mind before dozing off: no expectations, and no fears. He was in the middle of a field-grocery store combination. The sun shone overhead and aisles of food sloped in between a herd of sheep. A gentle breeze tousled the hair of shoppers and he saw a pair of small birds land on top of the shelving of the cereal section.

Somehow, Isaac already had a basket and inside was a six pack of beer. He shook his head, he was not old enough to buy this legally, what was he thinking? As if a little light bulb had gone off in his mind, his eyes widened at the answer. A jumble of thoughts coalesced to tell him, “you're not awake”.

“I'm not awake,” he repeated back to himself. He looked around again. The place was still strange and vaguely pleasant but all the oddities stood out so badly it was almost disconcerting. He looked back down at the beer in his red plastic shopping basket. Would he actually get drunk off of these?

A tall woman and her herd of goats passed by him, the bleating catching his attention. He bit his lip, annoyed to remember that he was dreaming again. It was so easy to forget where he was. The sky was a faded cascade of colors, warm colors mixed into a sunset. The type of sight that made him want to sit back and enjoy himself. He walked away from the aisles and odd mixture of agriculture and grocery products and settled down at the base of an apple tree setting the basket down beside him. Well, this place wasn't a bad place to try his first beer. He really hadn't tried it before; his dad had always been much more awful while drunk. He picked up one of the bottles, the glass cool and wet with condensation. The liquid inside looked more golden than anything he'd seen in real life.

He stopped himself before he twisted open the cap, perhaps he should wait until he was with his friends. There wasn't anything special about getting drunk your first time all by yourself. Isaac squinted at the label, the letters indeed having trouble finding a coherent order. Eventually large, stylized print spelled to read “Liquid Courage”. He snorted and put the bottle in his hand back into the cardboard carrier with the other bottles.

A flash of color flew across his vision, above him a beautiful long feathered rooster landed on a branch of the apple tree. It crowed loudly: a steady tone of multiple harmonies, and he woke up.


End file.
